LJ oct 10 report

[taggermike]

Sadly, fishless fish report. But eventful. Buddy Josh made the drive from Ventura so we were committed to a the long day. Launched at 6:15-ish. Off shore wind and a kinda choppy.
1st thing. Just north of the kelp I saw 2 birds swooping, banking, diving at speeds no shore or ocean bird ever could. Things came closer and it was 2 paragrine falcons. 1 had a plover or sand piper in its talons. Seen paragrines on the coast before but never out at sea.
2nd. Had my closest whale encounter ever. A hump back went by 20-30' away. I've never seen a whale moving so fast. It was moving right under the surface like a dolphin, leaving big boils behind it. It took a few seconds to even tell it was a humpback cause it didn't do their characteristic hump bend and dive. The hump went by horizontaly. Also it was going so fast it had its long ol' pectoral fins tucked in tight along its sides. I expected to see a pod of orcas coming after it.
3rd. Saw 2 guys flip their tandem n hurried to help. It didn't look look good. They were big guys and it wasn't a big tandem. Also looked they didn't know the first thing about remounting their yak. They tried to get back on the yak at least 6 times only to flip immediately. Yak was half full of water and had little floatation or stability. I pumped out the yak, n took their gear on my yak. Finally their buddy who was solo in a tandem, way more stable n floaty than my prowler, came over to help. Got em back on the yak and basicly started towing them. I'd guess they were in the water for 45 minutes. If water had been cold it would have been a bad situation.
As for fishing, couldn't make bait, saw no sign of working birds or boiling fish. Weather was perfect so basicly enjoyed being out. Landed at 5. Mike