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Hit the South at low tide around 4 with my new extreme fishin buddy. I met him on the South a couple of weeks ago, he's a really cool guy. First we went down near the dolos, but the water was pretty swelly, so we quickly started workin are way back. It was skunk city for the longest time. He got a couple of small bites but nothin would stick. We saw some people catch some little Rockies, but nothin big and definitely no consistency. It must have been past 6 when we hit the kelp near the end. It started getting dark after 8 and the sign says they will close the gates at 9:15pm, so we had to figure somethin out. I rarely go past the flat walk/old drive way that extends for the majority of the jetti, but my buddy said he had seen a big Ling at night with his head lamp on at marker 34 where it gets really shallow and it's all rocks. It's not that I don't like navigating the rocks, it's just that every attemp at going down that way has been a skunk. So I said 'let's do it'. It was gettin pretty dark, cloudy and windy, but at around 8:30 there was a break in the clouds and it opened up for some very bright moon light. I got a nice little bite just to my right that stuck and pulled up a little Black, probably around 9-10", released. I put the lure right back there and got another bite that didn't stick, but the cast after that landed a smaller Black around 8-9", released. A few casts after that I got a good hit that felt quite a bit heavier and I pulled up a nice little eater, right at 14". I cut it and put it in the bucket and went back to work, but the clouds were covering the moon again and that was it. It was past 9:15 and we figured we should split. We got to the gate and it wasn't closed and we wondered if they actually ever close it(?). It was some hard fishin and lots of pounding the rocks with very little success, especially considering he didn't catch anything, but he is a positive guy and I know he still had a good time and I finally broke my Rockfish skunk.
Pounding the Rocks is my affectionate term for after you have been fishing on the rocks all day jumping from one to the other, climbing down and back up, slipping a few times and eating kelp. The day after it feels like someone took your legs off and pounded them against the rocks.

-- Edited by Sebastes at 14:44, 2007-08-26

-- Edited by Sebastes at 00:00, 2007-08-27