Got out pretty early at the boat launches… a bit chilly. As my first trip to the park
I was pleasantly impressed… not very many people.. Only 3 other people launching at around 7am, I was the only kayak… but on the water there were two others early, and some more came out.
I asked a fellow at the launch where a good place for spot would be and he pointed south of the bridge. Went there. Drifted for a while with no problems getting/keeping a dozen and half spot… threw back a bunch that were too big. The fellow that pointed to the area was about three hundred yards further out…
I used my “new” homemade bait bucket, from one of those really large containers of cheese puffs ($5 at Target). Really like the size because I was worried about keeping the spot live if I had a quantity of spot. The problem is the darn thing is one fat sea anchor. I was otherwise happy with my design and tethering… I just have to find a place to keep on the kayak and level while paddling.
While I was out working around the pilings the guy I had met before (power boat) came over and asked if I wanted any spot… he had plenty… and as I did also…
I thanked him otherwise… and told him.. “Well, there’s one problem I don’t have, and that’s catching small fish.” ;-)
I was getting the spots chomped in half… but never even noticed something attacking the bait. So I set up a second hook on the tails… made the mistake of tossing out one small spot without a second hook, figuring well, something at least got to take the whole thing. Nope, chomped up to the head as most others. Considering most of the spot were not that small… somebody was getting fed rather well.
I had been anchored at the pilings in the upper teens for a while… when I got a really big hit and line was peeling off the lightly set drag. At first I thought my anchor had come off and I was snagged and drifting. But that wasn’t the case. I tightened up on the drag and started adding pressure and the line snapped supper fast. Test on the line is at least 15lb.. Probably around 20lbs… I can’t remember… it was one of my surf reels… I have the same line on my other reel… which I have been using and yanking on it on other occasions on snags not snapped it’s line.
Well anyway, that’s about it… Although for a brief moment, I was excited, to have something peeling off line in a fashion I hadn’t experienced on the kayak.
I didn’t see anybody catching anything (size wise)…
and I talked to a lady as I was leaving who had talked to a bunch of other people and said they had no luck either.
Early that day the guy I met said he caught six rockfish the day before.
There were plenty of fish showing on the fish finder.
Beautiful day for first time at the Bridge. Hopefully fishing was better for someone else, but I still had a great time. Let about half a dozen spot go with plenty of life still in them after 5 hours in the bucket. Although the bucket was over the side of the kayak except for paddling.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
