Back on the Yak!

Now I won't say it was just like riding a bike again but in the end, it was a great day! It started out at 7 a.m. when I got to Dana Point Kayak Center and couldn't find my kayak. I was an hour early for launch time and hoped to get all the kinks worked out before the other kayakers arrived. Tim Boyer (owner of the kayak center) arrived at 7:30 and said he had my kayak cleaned up and it was inside.

I connected my fish finder and turned it on. Whoops! Nothing happened so I disconnected it and decided to fish without it. I got everything loaded and down on the launch dock. Tim helped connect my bait tank and informed me its' battery was not strong enough so he loaned me a battery. Another problem solved!

I climbed in my kayak, turned on the bait tank and peddled towards the bait receiver to prime my tank. Just as I approached the receiver, I noticed I was sitting in water. My kayak seat has always stayed dry so back to the dock I went. Tim wasn't sure but thought there might be a crack in the kayak so he went to get me a loaner kayak. I unloaded all my gear including rods and bait tank. I got out and removed the seat and found the problem. There is a drain plug under the seat that had been unscrewed when the kayak was cleaned. I didn't even know there was a drain plug there.

I loaded back up and got to the bait receiver by 8:30 a.m., loaded the bait tank with a healthy mix of anchovies and sardines and left the harbor. We fished the beach first where I caught and released a small sand bass. There were seven of us - five fishing the beach (Tim, Tracy, Mike, his client, and me) with Wayne and John out at the pipeline. I think it was Mike who hooked a 4 foot leopard shark and took a ride for a while. Otherwise the beach was dead while Wayne was catching bass.

We headed out to the pipeline and made the trip in about 30 minutes. When we got there, we were surrounded by leaping dolphins chasing bait into the air. What a sight! Even the whale watching boat came in to show their passengers.

We had about 7 knots of NNW wind so it was difficult to stay on the pipeline especially since I didn't have a fish finder and had to rely on where the other kayakers were fishing. Our water temperature was 64 degrees with light chop. Tim fished in deeper water and connected with a 19 inch sand bass and a 20 inch calico. I decided to head back to the beach to fish for halibut. I called it a day around 1 p.m. Tim was already in and Wayne was in the harbor.

All in all, it was a great day as I spent 5 hours peddling around without having a problem with my knees. Not bad considering I hadn't been kayak fishing in over a year.

LARRC on the Dawn

Los Angeles Rod and Reel Club had its first Charter of the year on the Pacific Dawn departing Friday night and fishing Saturday, April 4th. Jim Carlisle, Al Scow and I drove up together. Roland Reesby beat us there.

Fourteen of us boarded Friday night and set up our gear for rock cod fishing. Dustin was running the boat, Mandog as second, Fernando and Hunter on deck and Keaton master of the Galley. Safety speech first then the plan. Weather on the outside too rough to reach (15 to 25 knot winds gusting to 35) so we would be fishing the lee of Santa Rosa.

I got up at 3 a.m. to see the full lunar eclipse but the boat was bouncing too much for me to safely walk to the rail so I went back to bed. When I got up at 4, I got a clear view of the eclipse. In fact we were able to see it until the sun came up.

We were tucked in the lee of the south side of Santa Rosa Island. Skinny (Dustin) was moving from spot to spot trying to locate fish.

Current was opposite wind and with the full moon the fishing was tuff. We learned later there were three earthquakes as well.  We worked hard from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. to catch a hand full of fish. A few people had limits but I wasn't one of them. I did, however, catch the big fish of the day - a nice lingcod on a big plastic tail loaned to me by Roland. I don't join jackpot but fortunately Roland does and he won the jackpot and gave it all to the crew.

Conditions were not ideal but we made the best of it. Comradeship was great though. We got back to dock at 7:30 p.m. and I was home by 10 p.m.