Kayak Hooping Adventure
 

I thought I would share my own experience hooping for lobsters, since this was my first year to do so.

I went out with a buddy on a 2-person inflatable kayak Sea Eagle. We parked at Mission Point Bay by Mission Bay jetties (San Diego). Instead of paddling 30 feet by launching from the beach, my buddy thought it would be quicker if we just picked up the kayak and go down the jetty rocks.

Everything went fine and we hooped around and caught one short. After throwing it back, we decided to go closer to the middle of the channel where it is deeper. I used a pocket knife to cut the zip-tie that kept the extra line tied to the buoy. The cut slipped due to water and 'poof', I hear air screaming that they are free. My buddy starts paddling like crazy back while I search for the hole leak and block it with my hand. Good thing we weren't far.

We made it back to the side where we launched from and we're wondering how we're going to get off and get back up. The swell comes up, we float up close to the rocks, and we sat there. The swell then went back down, and we landed on rocks halfway and everything flipped, including us onto half rock, half water. I managed to recover all the hoops and my friend asks me, 'Wheres your paddle?'

The paddle was gone in pitch black darkness. The only light I have is a clip-on that shows a distance of 2 feet. He tells me to jump and search around blind. So I jump in (not smart) and swim around looking for it. I see something and slowly went up to it thinking it could be a sea lion, so I was a bit scared. It turned out to be a buoy so I gave up and started swimming back. The black paddle happened to be right in front of me floating on water.

Overall, we lived, I recovered my paddle, and we didn't catch any lobsters, but it was still quite an adventure. Hopefully once I get a real kayak, things will turn out differently.

Wow, your lucky to alive.

Sounds like my kind of fishing trip. Anything that can go wrong does. Glad no one was hurt and all your stuff was recovered. I had a similar experience in a rubber raft. Good times.

Ok, I'll be the guy to tell you........( others are thinking it too)


WTF !?


You go out at night with one little wimpy light that shines two feet

Play with knife at night in a blow up toy

Jump back into the ocean blind at night

Check out a scary unidentifeied dark object just to see if it's a sea lion




This was not an "accident"........ You were kind of asking for it.


Glad you guys made it out OK.

:D

I always go by the saying, "live and learn". I'm not sure why anyone would want to die of old age anyways. boring fuckers. :the_finger:

but, i am glad you made it so i could read this. ;)

Live and learn? Not in the ocean.

I had two instances where I almost drowned, one was in a public pool when I was about 6, got thrown in by some bitch in 10' of water.....didn't know how to swim.

Second time it was while fishing the surf/rocks off Palos Verdes, jumped in to try and retrieve my cooler....what a stupid mistake that was.

I don't f*ck around in the water.....anymore, I have a family waiting for me to come home.

WTF would possess you guys to go hoop netting in an inflatable kayak? If you want to live and learn do it anywhere but the ocean.

Glad we're reading the story from the users point of view and not from the media.

well "live and learn" obviously means if you lived, you learned. :D if you didn't live, well then you didn't learn a damn thing that day.

My most traumatic experience was while body surfing and got pushed down by a sizable wave into the sand in about 5ft of water, followed by two more waves right behind it and i couldn't move for a good 20 seconds, which seemed like an eternity.

Man you guys are lucky to be alive. What were you thinking bringing hoop nets on an inflatable yak especially with a knife? Glad your ok though. Really domt fuck around in the water