L.J. High Stick For The Day (Tues. 4/24 Late Report)

[seriola_killer]

High Stick for making bait, that is...

Launched at 6:00 a.m. at the Shores. First beach launch and I couldn't have asked for better conditions at Lake La Jolla.

Paddled out past the cans and jigged up some quality macs, spaniards, and horse sardines. The 'dines were so big they looked like baby tarpon.

Went around the corner and worked the kelp line in around 70' of water. Did a couple of drifts (actually, a couple dozen drifts). Not much current, which I wasn't entirely too pleased with.

Changed bait religiously (every 10 minutes or so) until I was fresh out. Pedalled back in to the 40' range and loaded back up. Then pedalled back out.

About 11:30 or so, on the incoming tide, I sent a fresh salami mackeral (a biiiiiiig fucker) down about 15' or so and put the clicker on. Grabbed an American Spirit and lit it up. While puffing away and pondering when I'm finally gonna kick the habit, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz goes the reel. I gave it a good six count and put the reel in gear, when for some reason the mystery fish dropped the mac .

I gave it another couple of minutes just to see if it may come back and finish off the bait, but "no go". I reeled it in to find a dead salami, crushed with small patches of skin missing but no teeth marks. Hmmmmm..... I'm thinking ?. I know it wasn't a seal because it would have been torn to shreds.

Any thoughts from you guys?

This was pretty much all the excitement for the day. La Jolla's a funny place. Scorching hot one day, then zilch the next. Virtually everyone that day was in the NW corner (3 sporties, about 8 kayaks, and a bunch of PB'ers). I did manage to spot some diving birds about 1,000 yards off the condo to the south west. I'm thinking.... "Should I pedal out there? Nobody's noticing it. Hell yeah!". I get to within 300 yards working my way in front of the activity and get my jig stick ready. No sooner had I done that when a doucher in a W/A (Seaswirl, I think) blasts by me at 25+ knots and proceeds to drive right over the now-visible slashing surface activity. It was actually comical because there was a guy on the bow with a jig stick and he actually proceeded to fire it off (into the wind and while the boats still moving at a very rapid pace). The birds nest must've been huge. I saw him picking at his reel up on the bow while the driver just kept plowing through the diving birds.

I guess he missed that part of the Fred Hall seminar where they teach PB'ers NOT to drive right into the fish.

The preceding "rant" of sorts isn't to demonize the PB'ers, but if they just took the time to learn some little things it would not only make their fishing experience more enjoyable, but also the others out there.

So there I am, bobbing up and down, scratching my head while the birds fly off in different directions not to return. I thought to myself, "Well, it's a mixed blessing, this fine place with all it's life. If it wasn't such a special place, there'd be no idiots to do this kinda stuff, but then again, if it wasn't such a special place it wouldn't be worth fishing in the first place."

Gotta take the bad with the good, and I'll certainly be back.

On a side note, I met a bunch of really cool kayakers out there. It really surprised me how many people had a hard time making bait today. I'm certainly no expert but I found it to be quite easy that particular day.

I took my father-in-law out with me, and he's of the opinion that we can figure this stuff out on our own. I'm of the following opinion: "Fuck that!".

I wanna learn from the guys that call this place "Home". Spoke to Pelicanus Occidentalis briefly at the launch in the morning. He had a client to take out so I kept it short and friendly to a handshake, a smile, and a future undetermined as-of-yet appt. with the La Jolla Dr. of Death.

Father-in-law started getting tired around 2:00 so we called it a day, started pedalling back in with my back turned to the hardcore guys who get results (you know, the ones who put in a FULL DAY and catch fish during a tough bite).

I don't know how others fared, but the ones who called it a day early didn't catch shit. I can say this for certain: The guys who put in the most time on Tuesday certainly had moments, however fleeting they may have been, to capitalize on a potential lunker.