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Posted by Robert on 18:02:55 04/29/03
I Met Taggermike at his place in Carlsbad at 4:10 A.M. We loaded up his Fish N Dive and headed down to La Jolla. We pulled up on the beach a little before 5:00 A.M. There was a steady cold north wind blowing about 15 mph. The surf wasn't too big. We talked to another kayaker named Bob. Bob it was good to meet you. We decided not to launch because the wind didn't look like it was going to lay down any time soon. We might have fished San Diego Bay, but the smallest rig either one of us had was 15 lb. We decided to take a look at Cardiff in North County since it was on the way home. We got to Cardiff and there was zero wind. That was wierd because we could look down the coast and see La Jolla and it had been blowing pretty good there a few minutes before. I had never fished there before, but Mike knows the area well. The surf on either side of the reef was small and it was a pretty easy launch. After a couple of minutes we were outside the surf zone getting rigged up. Mike started chumming with some mashed up anchovies and soon was catching spanish and smelt. I caught about half a dozen 5-6" smelt for my Plano bucket. I also caught a 10' calico on my Sabiki. Mike had his bait tank loaded and he headed off to troll some macks. I pinned on a smelt and sent it to the bottom in 60 ft of water on a sliding sinker rig. I threw a Storm Wild Eye Shad while I was soaking the smelt. There was alot of bait in the water. We fished for a couple of hours. I did some chumming of my own. Good thing I didn't eat breakfast. I didn't get anything on the smelt or the plastics so I decided to call it a day. We pretty much stayed directly out from where we had launched in the morning. We didn't drift much either way up or down the beach. I stowed my gear below deck. As I was stowing my gear Mike hooked up to somthing. It turned out to be a leopard shark that hit his spanish. He released it. I started to head in. The surf was larger than when we launched. The spot where we launched had surfers in it catching some waves. I decided to land on the other side of the reef. I started to paddle hard to get in and looked behind me and some waves were building, so I pulled out and paddled back to where Mike was. It turned out to be a good decision. I would have been hammered by those waves. I followed Mike in. He caught a wave and surfed his Fish N Dive all the way in to ankle deep water. That was quite a sight. He landed dry. I had never surfed my Pro Explorer before, so I was a little nervous. I caught a wave and started to turn sideways. I dragged the paddle and sraightened myself out. I didn't make it all the way in. Some whitewater caught me and brought me the rest of the way in for a dry and fun landing. I'm planning on taking just my kayak and no gear down to the beach soon and practice surfing. The Pro Explorer seemed to handle pretty well. It didn't peral. The fishing was a little slow, but it was a fun time and a new expierence for me. Mike it was great fishing with you. We have to do it again. Off the water by about 10:00 A.M. We didn't catch any of those monsters in La Jolla today, but we'll be back. All in all a good morning on the water.
Robert
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