Lately only bad has happened to my fishing prowess.  I’m not sure if something got into me or has vacated to southern climes. 

    The new stuporvisor at the workplace asked me to meet him at five one morning this past May at the Temecula Chili’s, corner of Rancho Cal. and Ynez.  He wanted to guide me to a couple loudmouth bass ponds around the valley.   The rendezvous directions sounded easy enough.  Problem was there were no Chili signs seen from the road.  I drove in and out two large shopping center parking lots at the intersection, didn’t see a Chili’s.  About twenty after, I pull in to the Shell station.  Is there a Chili’s around here?  Yeah, it’s across the street.  Well, I been over there an...  It’s across the street, reiterated the attenDant.

    The only across-the-street it could be is Inez.  I was already through there three times.  Two more passes through I detected another cranny in the center behind a gas station, five-thirty I found the Chili’s, with it’s sign about two feet off the ground.  Oops, there goes my guide’s gray Honda out the lot and he’s not recognizing me.  That’s because I was in a rental ECHO while Lil’ Miracle was in the shop for a month.

    I one-eighty around but he’s gone.  I heard he caught three.

    Then in June, Lil’ Miracle in all her restored glory and loaded with tackle is racing south on the 55 near the 5, when all of a sudden the driver realizes he did not check for fish license.  Normally I don’t have to think much about it, as it’s always handily draped around the stick shift.  Hold on thar, I don’t remember seeing it.

    I pull over, get out the headlight, search high and low, through both buttbag and backpack, no license.  Slightly ahead of schedule and thinking swiftly, I bee-line it to Dana Warf sportfishing, one of the only places you might find a one-day resident permit at this hour, usually $6.  Worth a try since the tides were perfect and all landings from Dana to Pedro were reporting quadruple-digit sand bass counts each.

    What kind of fish landing ain’t sending boats out at 3am?  I walk over, nobody’s home, the chalkboard specie score in the window listed 1,730 sandies, just like I’ve been waiting for, but oh well, by the time I could get home and back it would have been light with an encroaching tide.

    I sentenced myself to two weeks hard labor on the rock patio.  The main structure should be ready to mortar if I get busy the next 2 months.  While I was masonarying away I had time enough to think, to try to figure where oh where my license went.  At least ten days passed before it dawned upon me that during my last folly I took it off before entering a store on my way home.  It ended up in a drawer over at the rental car desk.

Back to somewhat normal:

     The other day I was AIMing Breakwall Dan about how the low point of the tide this morning will be not so early.  He added that not-so-early is the high point.  I was wrong anyway.  The bottom was going to be at 02:45, meaning to be fishable one must show at the staircase at Crescent Bay by three, which I did.

    Up and over the dreaded hump, my first flings of the Fish Trap were made at 3:20 off the right of Sargo Point.  I knew something was wrong since I didn’t detect any interested parties right away in the honey hole, nor did I have any takers after hitting up all the other likely crevasses around the point with the lure in the next hour.

    Just for funzies I tied on a 1 ½ oz chrome Krocodile to launch.  I saw the barracuda are in town and as nocturnal feeders they might come in close to shred schooling grunion.  The lights from the street and a few houses help their fodder and the Kroc flash so brightly like they like.  Soon thereafter it didn’t seem to matter much and got boring rather quickly.

    Being a pro about it I realized early on today as if by instinct there are no fish around Sargo Point, it was time to start walking back to fish the other point south of the staircase.  On the way I cast to all the other usual spots to which I point and say, there’s one here!  This time I didn’t have the feelin’ and sure ‘nough all were uninhabited.

    It wasn’t until I made the trek over to fish the Santa Ana Cove side of Twin Points before I had my first hit on the Trap, which was the first cast here, by an eleven-inch calico.  For ten consecutive casts I had at least one hit, resulting in three hook-sets by eleven-inchers and one legal calico that taped out at 14”.  Should’ve been here first I guess.

    At light the bite died.  I went back toward the Crescent Bay side of the points, hitting all the usual spots with the lure.  Dana.

    Finally I went with a chunk of mussel cast out into the sand near the rocks anchored down by a one-ounce torpedo weight.  First thing I connect with a whopper.  Using the smaller rod and ten-pound line it was a cool fight as the waves washed it’s struggling ass up and over kelpy rocks.  After a perfect net job, another legal calico added to the bag, this one slightly over 13 inches, caught from where the Fish Trap swam five casts prior.

    It’s almost eight and that last swell up to my nuts tells me go home or die.  Last thing I added was a baby sheephead caught with bait, which was worth two small tacos.  I missed my sandy bass.  They were at least a month behind getting here so maybe they’re still boinkin’ out by the oil rigs.  By the time they finish and head toward shore to feed we won’t have the good tides anymore.

    Earlier this year Yahoo! announced an upgrade of their search engine.  Periodically For funzies I would enter breakwall into the various popular engines to see if thebreawall.com showed up.  It never did until now.  Right after the announcement, thebreakwall.com showed up #1 and #2 on Yahoo!.  Exciting stuff, eh?  Months later, thebreakwall.com catch reports page now registers as #2, which ain't bad, overtaken by a surf site advertising adventures to a breakwall on Maui.  Anyone out there know how to put a site back to #1 on Yahoo!?  Not to be outdone, 'Breakwall Dan' shows up as #1, with a thumbnail page as #2 containing pictures of his smiley face.

*****

From Breakwall Robert:

Alexandra's 1st fish at Lake Cuyamaca 06-27-04.  She gets the fishing skills from her old man......but the chair is all hers...see ya.

*****

From Jim L.

Went with some friends and fished a few places.   I caught 27 keepers.  Ate three meals of trout up there in order to keep some nice ones... 

Jim also submitted a funny:

Once upon a time, there was a Presidential election that was too close to call. Neither the Republican presidential candidate nor the Democratic  presidential candidate had enough votes to win the election. Therefore, it was decided that there should be an ice-fishing contest between the two candidates to determine the final winner.

There was much talk about ballot recounting, court challenges, etc., but a   week long ice fishing competition seemed the (manly) way to settle things.

The candidate that catches the most fish at the end of the week wins.  After a lot of back and forth discussion, it was decided that the contest would take place on a remote and cold lake in North Dakota. There were to be no observers present, and both men were to be sent out separately on this remote lake and return daily with their catch for counting and verification.

At the end of the first day, George W. returns to the starting line and he  has 10 fish. Soon, John Kerry returns and has zero fish.

Well, everyone assumes he is just having another bad hair day or something and hopefully, he will catch up the next day.

At the end of the 2nd day George W. comes in with 20 fish and Kerry comes in again with none.

That evening, Al Gore gets together secretly with Kerry and says,  "John, I  think George W. is a lowlife, cheatin' son-of-a-gun. I want you to go out tomorrow and don't even bother with fishing. Just spy on him and see if he is  cheating in any way.

The next night (after George W. comes back with 50 fish), Gore says to

Kerry, "Well, what about it, is George W. cheatin'?"

"He sure is, AL, he's cutting holes in the ice".

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