3/8 & 3/16 sessions

[tomar19]

I've still been making time to travel to the beach, just not writing the reports so here we go.

3/8
11:00 am -12:30
Peak low tide.

The tide forecast worked out nicely with the clock change. My wife and I decided to make a day trip to the beach. I could do a quick recon at low tide while she soaked some rays, then we would meet some friends that now live near the beach. We planed to meet for lunch and catching up until the afternoon incoming high tide when I would head back out. It was just the excuse to get in touch with our friends who recently married, moved, and started their new family.

I've been looking this particular stretch of beach out on google maps for a little while and was excited to see it up close. Low tide revealed what I was hoping to find, various structure of rocky surf and sandy beaches with trenches and holes. Water clarity was good, with little to no salad. The beach goer crowd was light and there was one other angler working a fly rod. I enjoyed watching them work the surf, and I was really pulling for them to hook up but I was on the move. I left him plenty of room to work and I moved on down the beach to pick my spots for the afternoon. I was throwing spoons and rapalas early on, then started looking for the BSPs on the Carolina rig before heading out for lunch. Got into a 4 decent 10"s before heading back to the car.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh247/tbone02001/2014-03-09_11-52-01_777_zps55f89084.jpg (http://s258.photobucket.com/user/tbone02001/media/2014-03-09_11-52-01_777_zps55f89084.jpg.html)

4:00 - 6:30pm
incoming high tide

After a nice get together with our friends I headed back out to the surf. The beach crowd was much thicker now, so I hit the rocky stretch first starting on the edges and moving to the middle of the rocks. No fish bumps, but plenty of rock bumps that resulted in one lost hard bait and one lost Carolina rig. Not wanting to leave too much hardware out there, I moved to the sandy stretch and continued throwing spoons and raps. Nothing going on the hardware, so I went back to the Carolina rig. I found a nice BSP spot and started to experiment with my new gulp products, after landing 3 nice BSPs on the camo SWs.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh247/tbone02001/2014-03-09_16-30-47_536_zpsbb78825d.jpg (http://s258.photobucket.com/user/tbone02001/media/2014-03-09_16-30-47_536_zpsbb78825d.jpg.html)

I switched to the Gulp ghost shrimp for 20 mins. No hits, so back to the crack and they were still there. Landed 1 and tried the peeler crab next. 20 mins. with no hits, back to the crack and landed another. Ok they are still there, the sand flea was up next. 20 mins for not, back to the crack and landed another. Now there were no signs of these creatures in the surf, so this was by no means an ideal experiment, but in the presence of these BSP the crack was the only thing getting any action. Being a Sunday and having work the next day we packed up and started out trip back to the desert at 6:30.

Ended the day with 10 nice BSPs and another enjoyable trip to the surf. Not a bad day at all.

Regards,

Tony

[tomar19]

Motorcycle trip time.

3/16
10:00-2:30
Out going high tide

Woke up at 5:45 to grab a quick breakfast and to hit the road. I must admit that I had quite the grin on my face as the sun rose behind me and I headed to some of my favorite roads to the coast. That grin shrunk a little when I had to detour from my planned ride and destination, but it turned out to be a fortuitous change in plans. After a reroute of my ride, I arrived at my new destination to find some of our FNN surf experts packing up from their morning session. It was great talking to you Arthur (wingnut) and some of the SWAT members. I'd also like to thank Robert (Murrieta Angler) for heading back out and sharing some of his surf knowledge with me. I committed to throwing Rapalas while I followed Robert down the beach watching and listening to his advise/observations. He quickly picked up a short and generously moved on, encouraging me to work the spot. Class act! Unfortunately, I didn't pick anything up and after working the area thoroughly I continued to move.

As we worked down the beach I had some issues with my gear and had to take some time to swap spools. After getting things back together, I wadded back out and kept working my way further down the beach. I was slowed up again when I got a little distracted, and was knocked to my hands and knees by a fast, late breaker. I cleaned my gear and walked down to catch up with Robert as the window of fishable tide as closing. As my typical MO, I switched to fishing camo SWs again, and picked up one dink BSP to dodge a total skunk.

With plenty of daylight I headed for some more great SoCal twistys and arrived home before dark. Had a great day of 300+ miles of quality motorcycling, connecting with some of the heavy hitters here on FNN, and a surf session with an experienced and knowledgeable angler. That early am detour turned out to make for a very enjoyable day.

Regards,

Tony

[skunked4life]

Tony,

Great to see the reports coming from you. Once you get the addiction, no amount of miles can keep you from the surf!

It's good that you got to meet and talk to Wingnut and Robert! Two of the most knowledgeable surf guys around...heavy hitters indeed! Great job getting the skunk off too! Keep doing what you are doing. It sounds like you have a great handle on things so far!

skunked4life

[PTN]

Great job Tony. You hooked up with the right person to learn some stuff from. Robert is definitely a class act and glad you were able to get your toes in the sand to catch some fish. Some of those heavy hitters will put in as many miles to find fish as you did but I don't think they would try it on a motorcycle :LOL:. Keep it up and it'll pay off :Cool:.

-Peter

[murrieta angler]

Hey Tony,
Pleasure to finally meet you.
I was sure there would be at least one more butt in that spot, but now you have an idea what to look for, in regards to water conditions.
When I get back from vacation, we'll give it another go. You can drive to my pad, and I'll drive from there...:Smile:
Take care,
Robert
<><

[Wingnut]

Nice sessions Tony and it was nice meeting you. :Cool:
Robert is a fine surf fishing mentor and you can learn much from him. :Big Grin:
Good luck out there and I'm sure our paths will cross again somewhere on the sand soon... :Wink:

[tomar19]

@ S4L and ptn:
Thanks for the encouraging words, I'll be sure to keep the reports coming. It's looking like I'll get in a few more sessions before the end of the month :Cool:.

@Robert:
That is a very kind offer, when the timing works, I'd definitely take you up on another session.

@Wingnut:
Crossing paths again with the SWAT commander would surely be a welcome coincidence. Hopefully I'll get to share the sand with you and more of the surf community here on FNN in future sessions.

Tony

[anchor3n1]

Hi Tony:

Great set of posts and glad to see you got on the BSPs. I like how you did the recon and located the fishy spots to come back to later. That extra effort is going to pay off and make fishing more productive for ya.

All the best,

Nick