CA report

The weather was nice so Michelle & I bought fishing licenses and made the 30 minute drive to Half Moon Bay to find out what the Pacific Ocean has to offer. The guy at the bait shop recommended that we try pile worms so for the first time in 20 years I fished with worms. These are not your ordinary worms however. They look like centipedes and they have pincers which they use to defend themselves against sharp hooks. I also bought some small, snelled hooks and some premade leaders.

When we got to our fishing spot I improvised a California version of the gulf coast DDNR (without the spark plug weights). We started off fishing in a sheltered lagoon but after a several casts with no bites we decided to move closer to the open water. In the first picture, please notice that my fishing license is displayed in plain view per California state law. I was hoping that wearing my license around my neck would have the same effect on the wannabe game warden as garlic has on a vampire but no luck. This guy STILL came and asked to see my license. He also wanted to know what I was fishing for and if I knew all the regulations so I asked him how much trouble I can get in while fishing with worms. He left after a few more smart-ass answers to his stupid questions.

It was low tide so we worked our way around the tide pools until we found a small channel into the breaking waves. On the first cast we caught this colorful surf perch. On the second cast we caught a greenling. Repeated casts into the same channel didn’t yield any more bites so we moved to another spot where I caught a different species of surf perch. At this point we decided to call it a day because I was running low on tackle and we had two fish for dinner.

It was a really good fishing trip. We saw lots of new wildlife, caught a few fish, and stayed on the right side of the law.

A Proposition

My next birthday, occurring in early february is a nice round multiple of ten, and as such I have landed a really sweet present.

My wife would like to fund my portion of an off-shore fishing trip.

I would like to invite all my friends to share the day with me.

The actual date of said trip is totally open, I haven't even started looking until I have some sort of guess at how many people are interested. I would like to think that I had enough friend to fill a line tangler but that isn't the way things work.

Who is interested and when should we schedule the day

Flaming Possum!

True story from Ft. Worth.

My in-laws were without phone service for a couple of days because their phone line was damaged when their neighbors garage burned down. The garage burned down as a result of trying to remove a possum - with a roman candle!

I sure would like to know the details on this one:

What type of roman candle was used; 8 or 12 shot, with or without report?
Did they successfully ignite the possum which in turn set fire to the structure?
Did they shoot a gas can?

Last fish of '07

Looking forward to '08, they can only get bigger.