June 15

[rossman]

June has been fairly windy here in Asuncion so I have been stuck on the beach a bit more than I wanted to, and when I have been able to get out, my sessions have been shortened by the wind. The result has been no yellows in June. Yesterday was a perfect day. Zero wind from sunrise til I got off the water at 1 pm. I was able to land my 1st and 2nd yellow for the month. Both in the 15 lb range. Here's a pic of one of them which seemed to have had a previous encounter with a sea lion or shark.



I had a nice encounter with a pod of orcas while I was out there. I had just flung my jig out in 135 ft of water and was waiting for it to get to the bottom when this pod of 5 orcas popped up, swimming perpendicular to my line. There was 2 big ones and 3 smaller models. I was able to snap one picture. Immediately after this picture, they turned directly at my yak and we're moving at a pretty good speed. If I would have had my wits about me I would have kept snapping pictures but I froze. It seemed that they were charging me but in hindsight I believe they were just trying to avoid my line. They came within 20 of the yak on the surface and then swam under it and then continued on. In fact, one of them had snagged my line on it's tall dorsal but when I pulled the line tight it came loose. They milled around about 1/4 mile from me for the next half hour and then split. The whole area was conspicuously void of sea lions for the rest of the day. I was telling Shari this story this morning and she was saying that they totally shut down the abalone divers when there are Orcas in the area. Guess I should have radioed it in.




It was so greasy calm that I decided to head a couple miles further off shore to explore. The water was warmer the farther I went out. Found some 63 degree water out there but not much life. I did run into something finning in the surface that I couldn't get close enough to to ID. Tossed a jig at it and it turned on it but then sank out. I suppose it was a shark of some type.