Saturday November 18th, 2006
Fished manresa this morning, with Deva. Got there at around 6:45, and found the parking lot outside full, but fortunately a couple of cars left, so there was space.
Anyway, I rigged up myself, and the gear; the 10-foot XP #9 with the #8 outbound line, a good combo. I've got a #6 outbound line on order via Ernie's, for my #6 TCR, but it isn't here yet, and I really don't like shooting heads with the clicky clack of the knot.
Deva shows up on time, and we go down to the beach. Beautiful morning. A couple of guys down there fishing to the south, but nobody to the north. High tide is at 8am. High surf breaking far out, and long foamers coming in. We tried in front of the stairs first, and I did catch one small perch there, but we soon moved north toward seacliff.
Fishing was pretty slow -- some nibbles but they don't stick -- and some of the patches we fished seemed STILL to be a bit murky, but we finally found a nice spot with clearer water and around 9 or so we started catching fish. I got another small one, the a GOOD one. Deva says "dood, thats a lunker". It is a good 11 inches. I catch another small one, and then another lunker like the first, maybe a little bigger. A couple of beach promenaders that came by earlier and talked to me saw me catch this one, and helped with getting a picture. At this point I see Deva messing with his rig. He switches from his grub to the surf-miki that I gave him. ("Time to use the Lars special!"). First cast and he catches a bigger perch than his previous ones, and looks happy.
I catch another small one and then get a good hit, though it feels a little odd; turns out its a DOUBLE :). Geez, I haven't had one of those in a while. I release the first fish and go back to the second; I notice I managed to tangle myself on the line and I just dragged my rod and reel several feet in the sand. This shows how absolutely VITAL it is to have a reel that you can take apart easily, dunk in the sea to get rid of the sand, and put back together again working. Shortly thereafter Deva brings in a nice fish, and a little later a REAL nice one -- I measure it against my rod handle.. a very nice 12 incher.
somewhat rough:
Deva in the surf!
first big one, a sweet 11-incher:
it took the microfly (thanks, Mark)
After I catch another one of these, a little bigger than the first, Deva swaps his grub out for a SurfMiki3 :)
I catch a double!
Deva gets this one:
and this cool 12-incher:
I'd say the big fish have shown up, finally.
9:45 -- I have to leave for the boys' last soccer game. Deva stays and continues to catch fish. He ends up catching 19 before heading out at 11:30. Nice going, dude!
Tides for today: 2006-11-18 01:53 PST 2.18 feet Low Tide 2006-11-18 04:45 PST Moonrise 2006-11-18 06:49 PST Sunrise 2006-11-18 08:05 PST 5.24 feet High Tide 2006-11-18 15:00 PST 0.03 feet Low Tide 2006-11-18 15:29 PST Moonset 2006-11-18 16:56 PST Sunset 2006-11-18 22:00 PST 3.76 feet High Tide