Monterey Bay trip, surf fishing, first striper.

My wife was invited to go diving with a friend in Monterey, sounds like a perfect chance for a little camping/surf fishing. We had a little trouble with snow over Donner, and a lot of trouble with a reckless driver in the rain on the 17.  About  45 minutes from our campground someone tried to squeeze around us, spun out, and smashed sideways into our new trailer. After about a 2 hour delay we made it to camp. Although completely totaled we were still able to sleep in the trailer so game on. 

I've tried fly fishing in the surf a couple of times before with no luck. Trying to find bars, ditches, troughs, tides, and currents are not easy. The waves all look the same. This time I was able to find two currents that ran into each other parallel to the beach. When they collided they basically made a perpendicular wake. This is where I concentrated my casting, and was rewarded with my first fly caught saltwater fish. It was just a little striper, but I couldn't of been happier. 

Smashed

See any structure? Me neither.

Sand Crab

Surf selfie.

Fish on!

First Striper, first saltwater on the fly!

Complex Twist Bugger, gotta have some orange.

Rollins Lake

I got a rare weekday day off this week so I decided to head up over Donner to Rollins Lake.  I got up at 3:30 am, loaded my kayak, and hit the road. There was a forty five minute delay on the way up due to a semi catching on fire. I got to the lake around 7:00 am, launched the kayak, and went across an inlet to the first sheer bank I saw. I was fishing a Shannon's Streamer, on an intermediate line, on my new Fenwick fiberglass rod.  The rod cast great, and handled the large streamers with ease. I was working my way along the bank, and had my first strike in just a few minutes. It was going to be a great day! Not too long after the first bite, I got my first fish to hand, a nice, hard fighting spotted bass. It was still early and mostly shady so the pictures of the first few fish weren't very good. 

The Shannon's Streamer was sinking a little too slow for my patience level so I switched to a bead head simi-seal bugger. It sank much faster, and I was able to cover water a lot quicker. I caught a few more fish, but the highlight was when I saw a fish rise against the bank. I put a mini hopper on my little yellow Eagle Claw rod, and cast over to the bank. I was expecting a sunfish of some kind, but what I got was a scrappy smallie. It put up a great fight, and I lost it right at the kayak. I also saw a bald eagle grab a fish out of the lake, and an osprey steal the fish from the eagle! Awesome! I even got a crappy photo of them.

I had to be home in time to pick the boy up from school, so I called it a day early. I landed seven fish, lost one, and missed a bite, Not bad for about three hours. I'll definitely be going back to Rollins Lake again.

I'm not really sure if all these bass were spotted, or if some were largemouths. If you know the difference please leave a comment, and let me know.

Osprey above, eagle below.

Gratuitous truck picture.

New truck

Pulled the trigger on a new 2016 Toyota Tacoma. Let the adventures begin!