.. without which this diary would be incomplete.
funny the adventures you can have fishing. This page mostly covers me going and casting off the eastside breakwater at the Santa Cruz harbor. Once I tried down at cowell beach as well, but without the stripping basket it wasn't that much fun, and I just snagged a bunch of ground up kelp..
On one trip to the jetty, I managed to drop the cellphone down the rocks. I thought it was a goner, but managed to find a big, adjacent hole, into which I could climb, and with a stretch, under the big boulder, hearing water rise up close to where I was, I managed to get a hold of it.
I never saw any fish. Usually I was using the 9wt 10' rod, with the Hi-D shooting head and amnesia. Once while getting a tangle out of the amnesia (leaving the line in the water), the flyline got wrapped around some of the boulders down there, and I thought I would have to cut it. Pulling steadily and pretty hard got it out, but it is definitely worse for the wear. I also managed to loose some flies out there, I think mostly due to bad knots.