I fished the bottom of the tide, which wasn't any good; I need to time my trips to catch the incoming. Sunset didn't look good.. no holding water that I could see and the waves were a bit much, so I went to manresa and spent the rest of the morning there. The channels were pretty shallow; there was one good-looking spot north of the trestle, by the condos, but it didn't yield any fish. I had one small one on at one point, but it jumped off. On the way back, I waded out to fish off a sandbar close to the parking lot. Not a real secure feeling place, as if a big wave would come, I wouldn't have any time to retreat. Waves kept washing into my line basket and rearrange my amnesia. After a particularly large wave, I got this fatal-looking tangle on the cast. As I was walking backwords to get up to the beach, I felt a fish on -- another small one -- but it jumped off too. I think the fishing gods were playing with me today. I saw a number of sandcrabs, and a seal. I also saw a worm; it was being washed out with an outgoing wave and had curled itself up into a spiral. Once it got to deeper water it straightened out and did the S-curve wiggle to bury itself. Basically an earthworm color.
Thought I'd try out the shorefishing this morning; brought the lami rod and a floater. But.. the guy using powerbait wasn't catching fish, so it looks like they weren't biting that morning. I walked past the 2nd pier, looking for spots to cast the little popper. The water was pretty clear, with some green junk floating on top here and there. We just had a good rain weather yesterday; maybe contributed to the lousy fishing today? $20 boat rental during the week, for the first 2 hours. Not bad; maybe I'll try that soon.
I drove down around 9am and looked at Seacliff beach, but there was a bunch of kelp in the surf, so I continued further south. Manresa looked nice; sunny day with nice looking surf. Tide is outgoing, with low tide around noon or so. I got down to the beach and started catching fish almost immediately; 2 small ones took the zen worm fly. I had another on, but it was really tiny. Talked to a gear guy down there; he had caught a 16" striper earlier in the morning, but mostly small perch like the ones I got into. Walked further north and fished the spots I had been to on sunday -- there was more water in the channels, and some fish too. Caught another small one and later one bigger one than all the others; it took the rusty squirrel fly. Not much else to report.. a seal was also working the surf, a few guys out fishing, nice morning. Quit at 11. Now that I've caught some fish again, I'm ready for more exploratory up at the lake. I'd also really like to do an early morning on the beach soon, though.. this talk of stripers has me excited.