Tuesday, September 13th, 2005
9:30 am to 11:30 am. I decided I needed to go out again. I managed to leave the state park pass in the other car, so I parked at the Rio del Mar beach parking lot (free), rigged up and walked over to Seacliff beach. Good weather.. nice and overcast. A little colder than the previous days.
The surf was maybe a little higher today, and there was little kelp to speak of. The beach wasn't as scalloped as last week, but there were still a number of brown patches; little mini-currents where waves congregate. Today I'm using my 9wt 10' rod with the 350 grain Orvis depth-charge line (5.60"/sec sink rate), that was given to me. The line is quite thin in the head, with a thin intermediate running line. It casts well, and it was nice to not have any knots in the setup. The rod definitely feels heavier than the 8 weight, probably mostly because it is a 10 footer.
I worked my way from the first beach access over toward the cement ship. I'm reminding myself a lot to keep walking after a few casts, and not just go into casting-trance (feels good, though) and stand in the same spot. Halfway there I got into a perch and landed it. It had taken the surf miki. A little later I caught another one, bigger than the first. This second fish took the small wooly-fly; a brown wooly bugger with a hot orange tail, size 14 nymph hook. I landed this fish within sight of the bait-folks up on the cement ship pier, which always feels good. I think my surf miki fly is beginning to look a little tired.. maybe time to tie a new one.. colors are getting a bit faded, as I've been using this same fly for months now.
A bit of a head-wind was coming up at this point, and the weather felt fresh, like maybe some rain about to come in. There were a number of seals working right outside the surfline.
I had an audience a couple of times, and another group of guys talked to me as I was walking out to the beach ("you know how to catch fish here?"). I have a feeling that people see me out here with a flyrod, and think I'm some sort of expert. Hehe. There were a bunch of guys playing soccer on the beach. Fun. A woman went swimming out there close to the pier and cement ship, her friend waiting on the beach. She was followed by a couple of seals on the way back.
I was working on my casting too. As I often watch the backcast over my shoulder, I think it turns into a bit of a twisting motion on the forward cast, so I've been conciously trying to not do that, and working on keeping a straight line with the rod. The casting usually goes better then. I never feel like I'm casting far enough. I think I'll put some measurement marks on the running line to see how far I'm actually getting it out.
I fished to a little on the west side of the pier, then turned back, working
the same spots. At the last spot, out from the bathroom/showers I found 3
more perch, smallish, but not as small as the ones at Manresa. Two of them
took the small fly, and the third I didn't see which fly it had, as it shook
off the hook right at the waterline. Seems like the perch are bigger up here,
generally.. but maybe it was just the weather.
A number of fisherfolk were up on the pier. I came down here to check it out yesterday, but didn't do any fishing. The pier folks were mostly catching just anchovies, as there was a huge school of them right underneath. Pelicans were diving over a large area, so I think they were pretty much everywhere. Probably all the bigger predatory fish were all gorged by the time the fisherfolk came down.
Tides for today:
2005-09-13 00:59 PDT -0.07 feet Low Tide
2005-09-13 01:11 PDT Moonset
2005-09-13 06:48 PDT Sunrise
2005-09-13 09:07 PDT 4.14 feet High Tide
2005-09-13 12:52 PDT 3.49 feet Low Tide
2005-09-13 16:53 PDT Moonrise
2005-09-13 18:32 PDT 5.61 feet High Tide
2005-09-13 19:18 PDT Sunset