Posted by brendan on August 05, 2002 at 12:00:19:
Was going to trek down to Willow Creek area Saturday Night but some friends of mine invited me to a
free Reggae show in Santa Cruz, so I didn't get out until the morning. Got down to Willow Creek (Big
Sur) at about 9 am, a lot later than I would have liked to launch, but the weather was still down so
I was relatively safe. Fished the south side of the big rock in what was about 50-60 ft of water.
Caught a ton of rockfish, a few lings (one bright orange), and the fish of the day, a 6 lb
vermillion rockfish (whoopee). At one point I saw a seal fin float by, which gave me a clue as to
what type of predatory prey interaction might be going on there. Then, a few minutes later I heard a
huge splash and saw a seal get hurled out of the water followed by a huge snout. Bloody mayhem
followed by screaming gulls charging the water. The whitey continued to throw the seal up and out of
the water, only two hundred feet or so away from where I was at the time. Having seen enough carnage
from my floating piece of tupperware, I started freaking out and began to book it back the half mile
or so to the landing area. However, at this point the fog had lifted, which resulted in the wind and
swell picking up (willow creek can be pretty gnarly when this happens). It took me around 45 minutes
to get back to shore. Totally shell shocked, I collapsed on the beach and thanked God I was alive. A
few Big Sur hippies (complete with drums, pipes and pieces of jade from the surrounding mountains)
were hanging out back at the parking area. They treated me to their Big Sur amenities (which was
quite therapeutic after the encounter), asked me about the fishing, volunteered to cook my red on
the fire they had going, and gave me some pieces of jade. Turns out one of the guys, named Irish,
used to commercially fish willow creek from his kayak. He said that he had noticed that the number
of seals around the big rock had been steadily dropping for the past month or so, and he guessed it
was because of a big shark (right he was!!). Sharks are around and we gotta be careful, but I ain't
gonna stop fishing Big Sur.
Zen Fishing
Brendan