Despite high surf warnings today, I went down to take a look at the beach. I had 2 goals in mind; one was to know what the places I fish regularly look like during storm conditions, the other was to if possible toss some leadcore with my latest flyrod find, to try it out. Also, I hadn't been outside since last thursday and couldn't stand it any longer.
I first drove to Newbrighton to look at things, and found the place fairly busy with surfers and spectators. These looong sets of large surfable waves were coming in, and those who caught them got some very nice rides out of them. The beach, however, was completely unfishable.
Next I drove down to Manresa to look at things there. The surf wasn't as high there, but it was pretty crazy. Still, it didn't look impossible, so I rigged up and went down. The new rod is a used sage rplx 9 foot for a 10 weight line, that is to be my big-stripers-at-san-luis rod. I had made a 30 foot LC-13 head for it, and looped it up to the SA shooting line on my other reel. I got a pretty good deal on the rod -- hundred and fifty bucks -- though I wouldn't have called it "very good shape". "Very fishable", however was a correct description. There was no picture in the auction, so I was prepared for something like that. Cork cleaned up pretty well.. the blank has a number of rubs and dings, and the lower stripping guide is a bit bent with a crack in the frame and some corrosion. The price was definitely right though, for a 3-piece, and it works great. I may replace the stripping guides with some sexy fuji titanium ones, and I hear that furniture polish will buff out some of the rub-marks on the blank. As it is, this rod has what the japanese call "sabushi" -- the beauty of a well used object, and I think I will feel even better about it once I get some fishing time behind it.
Anyway... enough about my hardware obsessions. I went down to the beach and had some fun casting and running. Here is how it works: the beach is pretty flat, so those extra-high-energy foamers coming in go really far up, which means that I had to walk fast toward where they've retreated to , line in air, make the cast, then usually make a quick retreat back up the beach as the waves come in. Usually I could do this walking backwards at a good clip, but one time I just turned and ran. (Monty Python -- "run away, run away"). The 10wt casts that LC head like a champ; I was tossing the flies 90 - 100 feet out there. (I have measurment marks on the running line)
After a while of this I called it quits (sanity prevailed), walked around and took a bunch of pictures of the beach. The waves had uprooted one of the volleyball pillars. I also found a cute little plastic boat in the sand. Let's see.. relative size taken into account, this would have been a category 400 storm? I picked up the boat to take it home to the kids.
On the way to work I stopped by at Ernies and bought a stocking stuffer for Sören in Blekinge, some thin white foam for a flytying experiment, and a 2006 fishing license + the steelhead report card. Guess I'm more or less committing to trying out the San Lorenzo river this winter. Ernie and Diane were up there this morning looking at it, and said it looked good. "One could catch some fish today." Hey, if the river fishes when the beach doesn't...
>> Bunch of pictures <<
Looks like I fished the incoming tide, around 10-11am. Around noon it started raining, raining, raining. Looks like I made my only chance to do an outing this week.
Tides for today: 2005-12-21 03:26 PST 4.18 feet High Tide 2005-12-21 07:17 PST Sunrise 2005-12-21 08:23 PST 3.39 feet Low Tide 2005-12-21 11:22 PST Moonset 2005-12-21 12:56 PST 4.25 feet High Tide 2005-12-21 16:55 PST Sunset 2005-12-21 20:06 PST 0.57 feet Low Tide 2005-12-21 22:42 PST Moonrise