Thursday August 20, 2009 -- Evening bite at Manresa
Wife and kids are out of town, so I go fishing in the evening. A 2 part outing.. the first started late afternoon, where I headed down there to fish, and 10 minutes into the fishing had to return to teach a flute lesson, DOH!
I return to the beach, park outside the lot this time, and go back down.
It is low tide. I'm rigged up with the 10' 9wt, etc, and 3 brand new flies.. all crab/worm patterns. First is a bunnyfly crab, next a zen worm, next a wormtail. All on jig hooks, all new.
Beach is pretty flat, but some areas look better than others, so I walk and cast and cast. At one point I have some bumps, but none that stick. Cast and cast, and a bit of lollygagging as the sun sets and the sky turns all sorts of pretty colors.
Then I get a fish.. a small perch that took the big bunny fly. I thought the idea of the bigger flies was to keep the small fish off.. oh well. I cast a bunch more, and it starts to get dark. Then I get a second fish. Shortly after I get a GOOD bite, and pull in a DOUBLE. The fish are getting progressively bigger, hehe. Now it is getting seriously dark, and I'm having trouble seeing my line as I cast it. Beautiful out.
Finally I decide to walk back, but keep the line out. Real dark now. At another likely looking place, I cast and on the first cast get a GOOD HIT that puts a serious bend in the rod. Striper, striper???... no, but a BIG PERCH! I pull it up past the waves, and try to photograph it, but it is too dark for my setup, and I can't get the flash working, so I release it without picture. I measured it against the rod though, and it was a nice 12 incher!! :).
Somehow, in the excitement, I've sprained a muscle in my leg; they'be been feeling wierd since the waterskiing last weekend, so I call it quits and hobble back to the car. Clock reads 8:30 as I get up there.
WOW!
Wormtail, Zen Worm, Bunny Crab fly
SAGE catalog photo ?? :)
Pretty sunset. The smoke from the Lockheed fire helps.
Second fish
Sunset double. It is pretty dark now. ISO 1600 and slow shutter.
Looking north. After taking these last 2 pics, I get the last (biggest) fish.
Looking south
Tides for today: ------------------------------- 2009-08-20 03:02 PDT New Moon 2009-08-20 04:47 PDT -0.99 feet Low Tide 2009-08-20 06:29 PDT Sunrise 2009-08-20 06:49 PDT Moonrise 2009-08-20 11:44 PDT 4.88 feet High Tide 2009-08-20 16:53 PDT 1.44 feet Low Tide 2009-08-20 19:52 PDT Sunset 2009-08-20 19:59 PDT Moonset 2009-08-20 23:02 PDT 5.82 feet High Tide