Manresa. Socked in fog. I loooove fishing when it is that foggy. Incoming tide toward the top of high tide. Mellow surf. I caught 10 BSP between 9:45 and 11 am. All small.
Big rod again, with a few different lines to try. I've noticed that the coldwater clouser line (the floater) tends to bunch up a bit in the linebasket, so I brought my Rio bonefish line down to try out. Stiff line, you know.. tropical application. Stretched the heck out of it, and started casting. Hey, this works just fine. Shoots well, is stiff and stays separated in the basket and doesn't tangle. Nice.
I'm also catching fish. I'm trying the same spot as last week, and today there are fish in again. Lots of small ones, but number 4 is bigger than the rest, at about 8 inches. All are taking the surf miki; my leader is about 8'. The 8wt bonefish line feels a little light for my 10' 9wt rod, but I'm satisfied that this setup is good and will probably get a 9wt bonefish line to use.
I then switched to the 9wt Rio outbound type 8 sinking line. (brought a few reels and spools with in a fanny pack). After 6 casts and 6 big chunks of kelp dredged from the bottom, I gave up on that setup.
Next, I strung up my intermediate 9wt Rio striper line, clear. This was kindof cool. I immediately started getting hits and catching fish again. The wierd part was casting a clear line; against the fog I couldn't see it, but I could see it against the cliffs behind me. After a little while I was throwing it well, with a nice turnover at the end of the shoot. Maybe 80' casts? (need to grease it up now with silicone dressing).
I walked further down the beach in the direction of seascape, and talked to a Phillipino (I think) guy fishing bait. He had also been catching small ones, but was interested in the flyfishing setup, wondering if it was hard to learn. We had a nice conversation, after which he pointed out another flyfishing guy further down the beach (I hadn't seen him before). Turned out to be Bob Price, (nice fellow) from Los Gatos who had spent the morning on the beach, and had caught a lot of fish, including some bigger ones. He also said that Paul Mulholland had been down there earlier, casting plugs for stripers.
After chatting, I fished Bob's spot a little and caught a three more small ones, then started walking back. Caught a couple more back at the first hole again, then called it quits.
Tides: 2006-07-07 02:40 PDT -0.02 feet Low Tide 2006-07-07 05:55 PDT Sunrise 2006-07-07 10:45 PDT 3.52 feet High Tide
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I'll add some notes about the previous days; last monday I did some beach scouting, and fished manresa a little. I didn't find any fish in my honey-hole this time, but 3 fish a little further up the beach, including one nice female about 11". I looked at sunset, but didn't go down. I went down to palm beach and tried that a little, but the wind was up fairly strong now, making it difficult and lots of folks were on the beach for the 4th July weekend.
The following morning (tuesday 4th July) I took Deva and Shannon down to Manresa, but it ended up not being a good morning. No fish on the flyrods (I had a grab, though) and Deva thinks it is a very hard way to catch perch. He and Shannon ended up fishing with their big surf sticks, but no fish on those either. The surf was more difficult to deal with compared to the previous couple of days.
Deva, on the other hand, is going nuts fishing bluegill at westlake, the last couple of days using his little dry flies (mosquito, etc. as the popper is now in a tree or something..) and doing well with those. Last night he even caught a record small bass, at 3". :) He is now looking at getting some fly tying supplies. I think he's a goner.