Quick Report - 8/5 LJ

[TCS]

Had a few free hours this afternoon so decided to go for a paddle. There was a little windswell at the launch but the wind chop was lower than the last few days. Got a greenback shortly after the 1st can and started towing it out to sea.

After a little bit a HUGE sea lion shows up beside the boat, I reel in my mack as quick as I can and he almost gets it. He stays right under the boat for a few minutes and I'm thankful that he doesn't really want that mackerel, cause he could probably get it if he was motivated. I pick up and paddle away and and throw out the mack about five minutes later. After a bit I get a short zip on the clicker and then another, very seal like. I figure its the big dude again and hope I won't get spooled as I reach for the reel. Something is tugging but I am reeling it in pretty easily. Definitely not a seal..... I can see something brown coming through the water....

Turns out its a cormorant, one bad ass cormorant. He let's go about five feet from the boat and then makes a few runs under me to try and find the fish. Comes back up and gives me the evil eye, looks like he flashes some gang signs. The mack is dead so I toss it overboard, paddle a little ways and hook up my spare. Just as soon as it hits the water the damn cormorant shoots out from under the boat and grabs my mack! I grab it back. At this point I figure its like Hatfields and McCoys. He's goin Hatfield, so I'm goin McCoy. Left hand goes straight up with the paddle, right hand tosses the mack on the left side of the boat...The little bastard makes a run at the boat, BAM the paddle almost gets him. He definitely didn't expect that. (No, I did not plan on hurting the birdie, just scaring it...probably)

I paddle away a ways figuring I scared him off, throw my mack in. A few minutes later and click, click, zip...the little bastard kills the second one too!

Well, this post is long enough I guess, so I'll sum up. The birds were going crazy, but no Yellowtail for me. The tide was so high you could hardly see where the kelp beds were. Got a couple of nice Calicos where I thought the kelp should be. Got home in time for fish dinner.