Part two of my shore casting salmon quest.

I decided that, as a function of the frequency that I will/have been going out, I will only post once a week and do a bit of a rollup/summary instead of clogging the board with my reports. I only got out one more day last week after my first outing. I hit first light at Carkeek, but only for about 45 minutes. Nothing substantive to report. A few non-report related updates: I took GOLSEN24's advice and went down to Outdoor Emporium yesterday and picked up an Okuma 8'6" SST Medium Heavy. After doing some research, and speaking with the helpful gentlemen in the fishing department, it seemed like a great choice. That, in addition to respooling my reel with 10lb mono, means I'm getting my 1.5oz rotator a solid 30 yards out. In hindsight perhaps I should have gone with a heavier rod, as 1.5oz is the upper limit of what the rod is rated to, but so far so good. The guy talked me out of respooling with 10lb braided line for fear of wind knots, but I think I'm gonna end up switching anyways. The extra cast distance seems like too big of a plus, especially with the lighter lures.

This morning I, again, hit Carkeek at first light. Today I fished for more than 2 hours. High slack (10.5ft) was at 6:47am, weather was slightly overcast with glassy calm water. Again, throwing a 2.5in chartreuse rotator with a pink skirt. Not much action early in the morning, but around the time that the ebb tide began to pick up some speed I started to see more action. Saw one seriously proper fish jump not 20 yards from shore, followed closely by a sea lion at around 7:15am. I switched to a #5 orange Blue Vox spinner with a gold blade that I had kicking around for about 30 minutes, something followed but lost interest at the last second. I forgot to pick up some silver #4 Blue Fox spinners (as recommended by THE QUADFATHER last week), but Ill head back to the emporium today after work to grab some. I worked my way south down the beach towards the mouth of the creek, casting into the rip that was forming off the point. I had something substantial follow to within just a few feet of me, but at the last second my lure ran into some weeds and it spooked. I didn't actually SEE the fish, but I saw a wake form from something moving beneath the surface just to the left and behind my lure. Around 30 minutes later, a small chrome fish jumped just off the beach in front of me. I cast over it, and this time through the crystal clear water I watched a ~12 inch sea run cutthroat follow the rotator nearly to my feet. Beautiful little fish. The dolphins paid me a visit once again, a pod of about 8 coming within casting range. I stopped for a few minutes and watched them roll by, so far I've seen them every morning.

Its funny, each cast I have some glimmer of hope that I'm gonna feel a strike, and yet on a macro level I wouldn't be surprised if I went the next 6 weeks without a single hookup. Either way, I had to wrench myself away from the beach today- truly a beautiful morning. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Grouse

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