Wednesday, October 19th, 2005
Manresa state beach, 9:30 - 11:30. Tide is up (incoming). So is the surf. My mood is a bit off today.. might color my perceptions.
But.. there are large foamy areas to fish over. As a result of the last 2 outings, today I think I just want to catch some fish, so I gear up with the spinrod, and "Bob's setup" for the endtackle. (sinker on a tube-sliding thingie, snaps, leader of black 15lb amnesia to the fly). Um, yeah, the fly isn't part of Bob's setup. I'm using one of the new surf miki 3's that I tied up a couple of days ago. This way I can still think of it as unorthodox fly-fishing. The tube-thingie with the snap is so that you can change sinkers if needed. Not really necessary for me, but all in all the setup was pretty tangle free.
In keeping with the (cheating, err no.. doing it the easy way) theme of today, I also just pop my waders on over my jeans -- no fancy undies for me today. That way it all goes faster and easier. That actually turned out ok, I wasn't cold. Good so long as I don't get dunked, in which case I would have to wear the undies to work.
So.. hey, this works just fine, of course. I went down to the beach and start casting, until I get a hit and have a fish on. I photograph it, as there is never a surety of more fish. Cast more.. wind, wind.. slow retrieve, and after a while I have another fish. The third fish comes right up to where I am, but at the last second as I was about to grab the leader a wave comes and lifts it up and it unhooks itself. I thought that was funny, and I'll count it anyway, as it was so close and I got a good look at it.
I'm missing the direct finger-contact with the line though, and I'm still wondering about feeling hits and grabs, but on one occasion I did feel something change, then a moment later it happens again and I have a fish on. It is nice to be able to toss the fly out this far. I did realize one thing though, which is that I need to put the rod tip down if a bunch of birds fly by. I'm keeping it up in order to keep the line out of the breakers close to me, but a flock of small plovers flew right through my line and I felt one of them graze it. Bird was ok.
Lots of surfers out today. There are some truly big waves coming in at times, but they all break a little ways out, so I'm not getting pummeled. After the 3rd fish I say to myself "just one more and I'll quit", and after a while the 4th comes in as well. A number of these hit the fly far out, not too far into the retrieve. After the 4th fish I keep casting anyway, and don't catch any for a while, which makes me think about the Fishing Gods, and making promises of quitting, and the necessity of keeping them. I continue anyway.
Then the train comes by. I decide to leave the fly out, and get the camera out for a bit of train spotting. The pics were fun to get, but the lesson here is that if combining hobbies like this, wrap the other up temporarily, that is -- retrieve the fly first, as the fly, the sinker, and a good bit of the line ended up getting caught in a halacious kelp-mess that took a little doing to sort out.
I turn back, and keep casting.. actually what I did was have a cast out and decide to turn back while the fly was still out there, but I walk instead of retrieve. Beach-trolling. Immediately as I start walking, I have a fish on and land it. Interesting. I try it again and get another. I cast some more on the way back and get 2 more. One of them I was sure was just a piece of kelp, though it attached itself far out, which I thought was strange. It didn't shake or throb at all, just followed meekly in. All fish today were in the 7-9 inch length.
Finally I head back up to the car. Yike, 11:30.. time sure flew by this morning on the beach.
A good morning. 8 perch. Nice sea air and sounds.
Tides for today:
2005-10-19 00:47 PDT 4.34 feet High Tide
2005-10-19 05:33 PDT 2.21 feet Low Tide
2005-10-19 07:19 PDT Sunrise
2005-10-19 09:50 PDT Moonset
2005-10-19 11:45 PDT 5.74 feet High Tide
2005-10-19 18:25 PDT Sunset