Saturday, June 25th
Today I wanted to try the 21' LC13 line + amnesia, with my 8wt. Turns out that this worked just fine. I don't know what the problem was when I tried using this on my 9'10wt. Must have just been really rusty at the flycasting thing. Interestingly, it seems that casting the short LC head is easier than the short T14 head. Maybe because LC is stiffer? I should cut the t14 up, and make short sink tips out of it.
I drove down to manresa around 7am, but the outside parking lot was full, so I continued on to sunset beach. Met a fun guy in the parking lot, Todd I think his name was, and he had a shark story to tell; when he was 10 or so he had a Great White shark hooked from one of the Santa Cruz pier skiffs. Didn't land it ;). This morning, he was casting a pencil popper / plug thing for stripers. He seemed excited about me flyfishing.
It has been a few days since the last trip. My righthand thumb has been bugging me; not sure if it is joint or muscular, but certain positions cause a bit of pain. I need to go easy on it. Time has also been seriously short.. the boys are not in kindergarten anymore, so the morning time has, in ways, gotten limited as a possibility for going fishing.
Sunset beach was really calm today. OK, I won't give up on this beach. Seems that there was a bit of a sandbank further out, where the waves were breaking, and a large trough on the inside with calmer water. I hit it right at the peak of low tide. Dolphins were playing out there; spyhopping and fluking. Still, the beach was pretty flat, but I managed to find one place with a small rip heading out.. saw the current and the brown sand carried by it. I had some nibbles here. Of course, the best spot there was already covered by a baitfisherman, with 3 rods set up. He was digging up sandcrabs for bait.
It is overcast.
Around 9:00 I drove up to Manresa (still in waders & gear) and parked outide the lot, as there was a place there now. Manresa was full of flyfishing folks, on a clinic. San Jose Flycasters. Kindof fun to see them, but on the other hand they crowded the first nice hole, so I had to move further north. Probably scared off all the fish too. None of them are using baskets. Interesting. I may have to try that again, when it is calm. Talked to the clinic leader.. forget his name.. I thought at first that he might be Jay M, but it wasn't him.
Fishing at Manresa wasn't too memorable today.. more nibbles, and one little fish on close enough to see it. Only small fish today, I think. Therese and the boys came in later. I wanted to land a fish, and didn't. Shouldn't I be getting *better* at this?
I'm still thinking about doing a striper run on the beach. Evening probably. I've got a 9wt intermediate line, but am now thinking maybe a floating line is the thing to use. Wish I had a reel with multiple spools to try lines out with. Of course the problem is also that there aren't maybe that many stripers out there. Allen says he's been out like 50 times, and only caught one striper. Still worth it though, he said. Charlotta got me a gift cert to SJ flyshop, and I'm thinking of what to use it on. Possibly one or two of the new RIO shooting heads, for the 8wt setup. I can probably cast these just fine on the 9wt too.. it doesn't seem to mind being underlined a little. Also on the shopping list is ceramic snippers, and a hook hone that won't rust. The stripermoon.com site is really interesting, with a lot of technique info; how to do the presentation, etc.. I like Ken's writing.
2005-06-26 01:32 PDT 5.35 feet High Tide
2005-06-26 05:50 PDT Sunrise
2005-06-26 08:29 PDT -0.93 feet Low Tide
2005-06-26 11:00 PDT Moonset
2005-06-26 15:56 PDT 4.66 feet High Tide
2005-06-26 20:31 PDT Sunset
2005-06-26 21:10 PDT 2.49 feet Low Tide