Conditions at manresa looked pretty good. Nice foamy areas, surf not too crazy, weather was beautiful and the red tide looked to be gone.
I strung up the new (used) Winston 8wt XTR, with a matching RIO OutBound line I picked up for the occasion. Took just a little getting used to casting that line with the 9 foot rod, but soon I felt good about the setup, and the casts went out smoothly. I get a bit more distance with the 10 footer XP (also better in handling the long head and I clear the beach gradient better) but this is easier on my hand. And, it gives me "that groovy feeling" that I don't really get from my Albright stick. Yah I know, I'm nuts. Oh well..
The practicing I did up at the pond last week helped, I think. I have to remember the 'short compact stroke', and if I do it right, the line shoots out with little effort. More practicing should make for better and easier. Plus, it is fun too, doing the target casting on the pond. Kindof like 'roving' in archery.
Anyway, the surfers were happy today as there were some good waves out there, and I was happy too. Just because, really. A great day to be out in the middle of it. I slowly worked my way towards seascape, and got as far as the houses on the cliff, past the trestle. Mostly the beach was flat, but there were a couple of areas with 'conflicting' wave actions, so there was some structure going on that caused that. On my way down, I had a 2-3 fish on, but lost them due to slack, then landed one. Felt more grabs in one place. I think it was just a whole lot of small perch out there today. In the way back, I landed 3 more small ones, and had a couple more on that jumped off. 3 of the 4 took the surf-miki, the other took the Linus-fly. Cool, maybe that fly works after all. I was beginning to have doubts about it. A guy with camera was down on the beach. I finally figured out he was a trainspotter, and was waiting for the freight train to come by so he could photograph it.
Note to self: sharpen the hooks before heading down to the water. Every time.
Tides for today: 2005-11-21 04:22 PST 4.21 feet High Tide 2005-11-21 06:53 PST Sunrise 2005-11-21 08:03 PST 3.89 feet Low Tide 2005-11-21 12:01 PST Moonset 2005-11-21 12:41 PST 4.73 feet High Tide 2005-11-21 16:54 PST Sunset 2005-11-21 20:21 PST 0.32 feet Low Tide 2005-11-21 21:56 PST Moonrise