Bat Fight over, move to the coast - guess its shark time.
Finally invested in a 12' rod and it arrived Tuesday morning (1 day early
). Happiness abound ... Shot Paul a text and told him we were fishing on St. Patty's Day and staying out of trouble.
Having whiffed the past few trips, Paul's confidence was faltering. He made sure to let me know about it too LOL ... After convincing him to keep the faith, we got to the beach around 4:30. Lotsa surfers and decent break so we head South to wait for sunset.
Cast out some macs and I get picked up 15 min later. Great runs but need to get used to fighting fish with this longer rod. May cut down the butt section a bit.
Landed this nice LiL' 44 1/2" Bat. Forgot how hard they fight in the surf
I was spent ... LOL ...
Now for "Trippin" #1 ...
After a lull in the action I decide to walk North and see if the surfing crowd had thinned. I get some 50 yards from our spot and look back. Paul is relieving his bladder up the beach, and I see my rod holder ever so slowly start to lean. "CRAP!!!"
Take off running. I mean, RUNNING. Haven't sprint like this in a good while now ... all the way yelling for Paul to grab the rod but he can't hear me. Just as the rod is about to touch down I dive (or fall) and it lands perfectly in my palms. Must have looked funny as hell though ... superman the hardpack in the shape I'm in ... FLOL
Paul turned around just in time to see my belly flop .. but hey ... saved the reel from the Sand !!!! But feel like I was hit by a car today.
Nothing more after that except kelp stringers, and we were running out of room with the incoming tide, so we made our way North.
See some familiar faces and new ones too.
Joe and Binh were staked up and fishing the spot. Only 1 Leo reported, but the tide would peak and flip at the right time, so everyone was optimistic.
"Trippin" #2 -
Casting and re-baiting a few times at the new AO. Went to re-cast ... wade out ... load up ... fling and a **SNAP**
WTF???
Yep ... that was only 3 hours old ...
Joe (Jaws) was gracious enough to let me use his back up rig. Just want to give a shout out ... super cool man. Thank you.
That saved a long trip back to the car to fetch the 7' ugly stick. Was also nice to demo the Saltist reel. Thing casts nice!!
"Trippin" #3 - Paul gets one before Joe
Bout 9pm we give the 10 min warning when Paul's rod loads up. Not a big run, just a slow load.
He sets the hook and is on good. Binh and Joe start walking over when I see Binh's rod absolutely double over. Yelling 'you're on ... you're on ... ' Binh runs over and he's on a nice fish. We have two fights going on - awesome!
Doesn't take long for Paul to get his fish beached. Joe did the honors of tail grab man (scary chit right there
)
"Trippin" #4 - No ones camera worked well enough for a good shot ... LOL LOL
Paul's phone crapped out, mine ran out of juice, Binh had no flash, and Joe's was through a plastic shield ... lol ... Was pretty funny. Not even sure Paul really caught a fish.
90" male, mac head, top of outgoing tide ... guess he's on the list now.
That's all I got. Funny night ...
Happy catching!!!
WMB~
