Wednesday C&R

[Croaker Dave]

I launched at 3pm on Wednesday to try for an evening bite on the forkers. Lake La Jolla launch. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. It was a pretty heavy overcast with a little wind chop, coudn't even find a beam of sunlight to give me some hope. Made some nice spaniards outside the reserve, one or two on every drop. I put out two lines hi-lo and trolled to the golden dome and back. But it was dead, no signs of anything. Not even a sea lion looking for free lunch. Until I saw a single black cormorant bobbing on the swells in front of me. As quick as you can say "la jolla sleighride", my deep line gets picked up and starts clicking gently. "Oh no", I thought, and felt the pull on the line to judge the weight. Felt like a chicken. Shit. I started reeling in and up pops the cormorant with my mac crosswise in his beak. I reeled it in, flopping and pulling through the chop, until it got close enough to see what the hook situations was. Whew! The hook was in the mac's nose and clear of the bird. I reel this tenacious SOB all the to my side, shook the rod, lifted it completely out of the water, and it still hung on. I had know idea that cormorants were the bulldogs of the avian world. I looked around for a pursuader, decided on the paddle, but cormdog let go as I leaned toward it. Then he lunges for the brokeback mac as I flip it into my lap. I thought "oh shit, he's going to jump into my lap", so I quickly unhooked and flipped him the mac just as he swam under my yak. I had one second to be happy with that ending, when zzzzzzz, my second line is getting pulled from 75 feet in the other direction. That SOB is fast! And hungry! Repeat the whole story...but sadly this time when I got him to the boat I see he has swallowed the mac. I didn't know what to do except cut the line at his beak and hope the circle hook stays unhooked and rusts out.

Now I've got one more thing to worry about stealing my bait, and it's faster and quieter than a sea lion, and too dumb to avoid the hook.