Fishing...
Two days worth of fishing. Not bad for me.
Sunday: Decided to wake up early and hit Miramar Lake. Got there around 7am and since they don't have a concession stand any more you have to "electronically" purchase your fishing permit. OK, not a bad idea but not a good one... seems it only takes cash. So without $8 in cash I had to drive down to the AM/PM store and get some cash. Probably shouldn't have as I saw no city or state deputy at all. I remember as a kid fishing there the rangers would check up on ya at least 3-4 times daily. Different ones too! Now they don't even care. Any case I get my permit and start heading over to the one and only ADA accessible fishing ramp. I get there and this thing is mangled. Looks like the storm pushed it up on to the shore and instead of being nice and "accessible" it was a bit of a climb to just get on the ramp part itself; which was then a steep incline to walk. NOT very accessible. There were some people there that said it had been that way since the rain stopped. Well if it's been that way since the rain stopped and here it is 2 weeks later why is it not fixed? Meh... I'll be writing a letter to the city about that lake. Oh just so I get it out of the way now so I can continue my rant, I did catch one trout. So the other thing that got on my nerves are the people walking, jogging, biking, blading and whatever else on the CITY road that goes around the lake. People walking the same direction on both sides and not moving out of the way of vehicles really pissed me off. I was literally telling people to please move to the far right when a vehicle comes up. Then when I used the horn because people were wearing headphones I got the nastiest looks. Best of all was when old people would tell me to slow down and I could tell them "I'm only doing 7MPH and the limit is 15MPH" before I passed them. I think I'll be trying to get Miramar to charge people for day usage... if I have to pay to fish they have to pay to walk. It is after all only fair, right? My main beef is the accessibility of the lake and not only that but I hear they're getting rid of the boats here soon. Hopefully they put all new fishing docks in real soon.
Monday: Now the adventure in fishing begins. Court invited me to come along with him on a squidding trip($45). I said sure and since I've never done this before thought it would be good to try something new. Besides how big could a squid get? Here I am thinking about 5-10lbs max, boy was my bubble about to be burst. However, not all is 100% perfect in the land of squid fishing. I brought my own rod and reel set up. I had the bait caster with 60lb braided line (which in reality was about 80lbs) and a hefty deep sea fishing pole. I should be ok but my reel didn't hold any where near enough line for where we were going. So I had to rent gear($12). Now then I knew I needed to buy a squid jig but again wasn't really expecting what I actually had to get. I didn't need to get the biggest but the guy didn't really try to sell me on the smaller so he settled to really upscale the middle. Which I bought ($17.99). So now I have a squid jig that might only see usage once a year for a few hours. Although I think a bit over board the old saying goes, "The bigger the bait the bigger the fish" and I was about to be schooled. So I've spent probably more than I wanted to but I was being promised a lot of squid! $75 bucks in I better have fun. We get on the boat and off we go. We get close to where we're going and we get a nice little "Squid Seminar" in the galley (which BTW the New Seaforth's cook is awesome!) and then it's fishing time! Deep water. I let my line go out and about 5 minutes later it hits something. WOW! I'm realized I'm in for a fight. 20 minutes later and I have just experienced a 50lb squid fight. I am spent. I do this 4 more times, losing 2 and landing one more. Moving up and down the boat, enduring tangles here and there. Good fun but a lot of work. I am really happy my legs did great. I am also really happy the crew and the other people on the boat helped me bag my squid as the deck hands in the seminar said we would be responsible for doing it ourselves. So after 4 extremely large squid fights I'm ready to rest and then get right back in the fight. Now here's the downer. We left at 4pm, it takes us 45-60 minutes to get to our fishing spot, we fish for an hour and then we're back on land by 7pm. I paid $45 for a fishing trip that was supposed to last until 10pm and we're back 3 hours early. Somewhere in there I'm a bit disappointed but at the same time I understand the reasoning for cutting it short. They asked us to only take what we would use and seriously these squid were in the 40-60lb range. One of my 50lb squid gave me 4 steaks easily 12x12 inches each and about 1.5 inches thick. People were keeping 5-10 of these guys and there were 45 people on board. Almost 400 squid caught in one hour!!! INSANE! So needless to say I still feel due to the amount of money I spent I should be entitled to a discount on another trip or other type fishing trip. I'll also save up for a reel that can handle the haul a lot better. The only thing is I fear it's not going to get much use. Other than the some what weird sense of feeling about the $$/time ratio I had a blast but I'll only be doing this once a year if at all.
I did take some photo's of the trip and my catches. Check em out at my flickr page.
Recently also found out that Lake Poway did indeed drop their "State License" requirement to fish there. I wonder how they got that passed? I'm glad though but wished it was the other way around too. I wish that all lakes would drop the need for permits and only require a state license to fish. I guess it goes to being a city reservoir instead of a state park? I wonder if the Fish and Game Wardens are also leaving? I also hear that Lake Miramar is going to be getting rid of their boats for sale. That's going to suck for anyone wanting to go fishing on the lake and do not have their own boat or a float tube. I'll be looking into a small 1-2 man inflatable for myself. I saw one at Miramar and thought that would be perfect for me. I just need to find one.
So yeah me and fishing. Might go for a walk tomorrow but might just hit up a movie instead.
Sunday: Decided to wake up early and hit Miramar Lake. Got there around 7am and since they don't have a concession stand any more you have to "electronically" purchase your fishing permit. OK, not a bad idea but not a good one... seems it only takes cash. So without $8 in cash I had to drive down to the AM/PM store and get some cash. Probably shouldn't have as I saw no city or state deputy at all. I remember as a kid fishing there the rangers would check up on ya at least 3-4 times daily. Different ones too! Now they don't even care. Any case I get my permit and start heading over to the one and only ADA accessible fishing ramp. I get there and this thing is mangled. Looks like the storm pushed it up on to the shore and instead of being nice and "accessible" it was a bit of a climb to just get on the ramp part itself; which was then a steep incline to walk. NOT very accessible. There were some people there that said it had been that way since the rain stopped. Well if it's been that way since the rain stopped and here it is 2 weeks later why is it not fixed? Meh... I'll be writing a letter to the city about that lake. Oh just so I get it out of the way now so I can continue my rant, I did catch one trout. So the other thing that got on my nerves are the people walking, jogging, biking, blading and whatever else on the CITY road that goes around the lake. People walking the same direction on both sides and not moving out of the way of vehicles really pissed me off. I was literally telling people to please move to the far right when a vehicle comes up. Then when I used the horn because people were wearing headphones I got the nastiest looks. Best of all was when old people would tell me to slow down and I could tell them "I'm only doing 7MPH and the limit is 15MPH" before I passed them. I think I'll be trying to get Miramar to charge people for day usage... if I have to pay to fish they have to pay to walk. It is after all only fair, right? My main beef is the accessibility of the lake and not only that but I hear they're getting rid of the boats here soon. Hopefully they put all new fishing docks in real soon.
Monday: Now the adventure in fishing begins. Court invited me to come along with him on a squidding trip($45). I said sure and since I've never done this before thought it would be good to try something new. Besides how big could a squid get? Here I am thinking about 5-10lbs max, boy was my bubble about to be burst. However, not all is 100% perfect in the land of squid fishing. I brought my own rod and reel set up. I had the bait caster with 60lb braided line (which in reality was about 80lbs) and a hefty deep sea fishing pole. I should be ok but my reel didn't hold any where near enough line for where we were going. So I had to rent gear($12). Now then I knew I needed to buy a squid jig but again wasn't really expecting what I actually had to get. I didn't need to get the biggest but the guy didn't really try to sell me on the smaller so he settled to really upscale the middle. Which I bought ($17.99). So now I have a squid jig that might only see usage once a year for a few hours. Although I think a bit over board the old saying goes, "The bigger the bait the bigger the fish" and I was about to be schooled. So I've spent probably more than I wanted to but I was being promised a lot of squid! $75 bucks in I better have fun. We get on the boat and off we go. We get close to where we're going and we get a nice little "Squid Seminar" in the galley (which BTW the New Seaforth's cook is awesome!) and then it's fishing time! Deep water. I let my line go out and about 5 minutes later it hits something. WOW! I'm realized I'm in for a fight. 20 minutes later and I have just experienced a 50lb squid fight. I am spent. I do this 4 more times, losing 2 and landing one more. Moving up and down the boat, enduring tangles here and there. Good fun but a lot of work. I am really happy my legs did great. I am also really happy the crew and the other people on the boat helped me bag my squid as the deck hands in the seminar said we would be responsible for doing it ourselves. So after 4 extremely large squid fights I'm ready to rest and then get right back in the fight. Now here's the downer. We left at 4pm, it takes us 45-60 minutes to get to our fishing spot, we fish for an hour and then we're back on land by 7pm. I paid $45 for a fishing trip that was supposed to last until 10pm and we're back 3 hours early. Somewhere in there I'm a bit disappointed but at the same time I understand the reasoning for cutting it short. They asked us to only take what we would use and seriously these squid were in the 40-60lb range. One of my 50lb squid gave me 4 steaks easily 12x12 inches each and about 1.5 inches thick. People were keeping 5-10 of these guys and there were 45 people on board. Almost 400 squid caught in one hour!!! INSANE! So needless to say I still feel due to the amount of money I spent I should be entitled to a discount on another trip or other type fishing trip. I'll also save up for a reel that can handle the haul a lot better. The only thing is I fear it's not going to get much use. Other than the some what weird sense of feeling about the $$/time ratio I had a blast but I'll only be doing this once a year if at all.
I did take some photo's of the trip and my catches. Check em out at my flickr page.
Recently also found out that Lake Poway did indeed drop their "State License" requirement to fish there. I wonder how they got that passed? I'm glad though but wished it was the other way around too. I wish that all lakes would drop the need for permits and only require a state license to fish. I guess it goes to being a city reservoir instead of a state park? I wonder if the Fish and Game Wardens are also leaving? I also hear that Lake Miramar is going to be getting rid of their boats for sale. That's going to suck for anyone wanting to go fishing on the lake and do not have their own boat or a float tube. I'll be looking into a small 1-2 man inflatable for myself. I saw one at Miramar and thought that would be perfect for me. I just need to find one.
So yeah me and fishing. Might go for a walk tomorrow but might just hit up a movie instead.