Dumbarton Pier - Sat. 6/27

First time at the pier with a buddy of mine. He's never fished the bay before so based on someone's previous post I thought we'd go for some sharks and rays. To my surprise, I hooked up on a good sized striper at the start of the low tide. Squid was the bait. Measured out at about 30 in.

And also got into a leapord shark. Saw several sturgies breaching early morning. My buddy hooked into something big too but it cut his line... probably another shark.

DJ Funktual's Top 10 Samples in Hip Hop History Parts 1 and 2

We know hip hop artists sample lots of different songs, older songs, funk songs, r&b, soul songs. This guy breaks it down for you:

Blue Water Seafood Market and Grill - SD

Can someone in SD check this out? Ei and I watched this on 3D last night (that's Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives for the uninitiated) and it looks awesome. Fresh seafood and that's all they do. Maybe Chris can go and check it out since he is Mr. Yelp Elite.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/blue-water-seafood-market-and-grill-san-diego

New MacBook Pro 15"

At work, my PC refresh date came up.  I chose the Mac option.  I already have a MacBook Pro 17" and I have been impressed with it, even though I run Vista on it most of the time (I need Windows for work apps).

So, when the Mac refresh option came up I decided that the new uni-body casing of the new MacBooks would be a good choice.  I am happy so far.  The new keyboard is easier to mash on with my big fingers.  And the new single unit trackpad/clicker is a welcome change.  I also like the black monitor bezel.  Now the question is, do I install Vista in Bootcamp or not?

Stephanie our pet Pug Passed Away Today

Today is a very sad day. Stephanie our Pug is with her sister DJ now in heaven (Stephy and DJ were sisters from the same litter and I bought them as pets in 1996. DJ passed away 5 years ago). We will miss Stephy so much. She has been our loyal friend and our baby for 13 years. We will always remember her.

The other night she came in from outside and she stumbled and laid down on the carpet. She was breathing hard. I think she may have had a heart attack. Over the next day she seemed ok, she ate some of her food and rested. Last night she was breathing hard again. She laid down on the bed with me with her head on my leg. Her breathing calmed down a bit. When I woke up it was quiet and I found her in the bathroom.

This morning I took her to the Humane Society. Eileen and I decided we would not do a formal burial in a Pet Cemetery like we did with DJ, but we know that Stephy knows we love her the same. She gave us so much joy and memories and we will never forget.

In Loving Memory - Stephanie Paule 1996 - 2009

Sturgeon At Last!

After many trips on the water in search of Sturgeon, the hard work finally paid off. Mark and Dad lost their Sturgeon Virginity. Check out Mark's post on FishSniffer for the details. Congrats Mark and Dad!

http://www.fishsniffer.com/cgi-bin/forumsyabb/YaBB.pl?num=1236623037

I have a few songs for this post...

"At Last... my Sturgeon has come along..."

"Finally... it's happened to me... a Sturgeon's right in front my face and I just can't hide it..."

"Like a Sturgeon... caught for the very first time... "

Super Bowl Weekend on the Delta

Mark, JR and I went out for Sturgeon again this past weekend. We left Saturday night got to the launch around 11 PM. As we were cruising in the dark to where we wanted to start fishing, we ran aground in 1.5 ft. of water. It was low tide and we got too close to an island. We tried getting out but we were stuck. We waited for about an hour and a half and the tide started to come up. We used the anchor to pull us to deeper water and we were out.

We continued out to PG&E, fished for an hour or two for nothing. Then, we headed out to Honker Bay where we watched the sun come up. There we had no luck with keeper sturgeon only a couple of shakers that JR pulled up. Mark did manage to get a keeper striper though. Next, we originally planned to call it a day and watch the Super Bowl but we said "da ell wid dat". We wanted to fish. We tried Chain Island and again, no luck except a bunch of flounders and I think JR had another shaker sturgeon there too.

Finally before we called it a day we tried one more spot in Broad Slough and there JR pulled in a keeper striper and Mark, two big ones - ~26" and the other maybe 28".

Here are the pics:

JR's shaker Sturgy



Marvin's shaker Sturgy


JR with another shaker



A big ship that came close to us as we were anchored at Chain Island

Mark's 26 incher burly hook in da lipsch

Mark and the 26 incher

Mark wrapped up the day with this hog. This is his Ben Affleck pose. Not the real Ben Affleck. Look at the picture below. It's a guy on Fish Sniffer who catches lots of big Stripers on topwater lures who looks like Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck's fish is bigger... hehe.

Dad's Los Vaqueros Monster Striper

This is the monster striped bass that Dad pulled out of Los Vaqueros last week. He and his buddy took out a rental boat and he was trolling a hair raiser. He played it for a half an hour before landing it to the boat. They had no net. I don't know the length but I think he said it was a 17 lb'er.

Dad's Big Clifton Court Striper

Here's a pic from Dad's camera. This is his 31 inch striped bass he caught at Clifton Court Forebay.

Max got a haircut

And afterwards he wanted a McDonald's cheeseburger and fries... I know not health food, but it's what his grampa feeds him for lunch ;-)

First (almost keeper) Sturgeon

Mark and I decided to do an overnight fishing trip on the boat. The last time we were out fishing, we met a guy who was going out for sturgeon as we were leaving. He told us he caught a 46" sturgeon the night before. He said night is a good time to go.

So we packed up lots of clothing, sleeping bags, food. Mark brought his propane latern and stove. We launched around 2 or 3 PM on a Saturday out of Antioch. We were armed with Grass and Ghost shrimp.

First we tried out by the Big Cut in Suisun bay but no luck except for a croaker hook in a berry (inside joke). After night fall we moved around and settled on anchoring out by Honker light 27. Around midnight just after the coffee was made, I get a jingle on my Ugly Stik Tiger rod. I go to check it and I feel some tapping so I set the hook. I started reeling in and it didn't feel too heavy. I think I told Mark that it might be a shaker or trash fish. But as it started getting close to the boat it made a run back down. At that point, I knew it was something sizeable.

It made another run towards the boat. I was worried as it was peeling line that I might get spooled or break off. The line I had on was maybe 25 lb. test mono. Luckily it held on and as the fish got closer I told Mark to get the net. He woke up JR to help. Then Mark said "Whoa! There it is!" The fish surfaced. It looked like it might be a keeper. Mark tried to net it and it freaked out and went back down. I reeled it back and it was finally netted. Hi fives!

We got the dino in the boat and Mark measured it out... only 40". The slot is 46" minimum and 66" maximum. We took pics and released her back in. The adrenaline was pumping and we were definitely hooked.

After that, Mark managed to hook into his first ever delta sturgeon, a small shaker. He pulled up 3 more shakers as the night went on. We also landed some Starry flounders.

In the morning we moved to PG&E for lots of shaker stripers, one shaker sturgeon and two keeper stripers.

The night pics aren't that good since they were taken with a cell phone camera but here they are. All in all, it was a good first time overnighter trip... cold but fun.

ISE Show

The International Sportsman's Expo came to town early January in San Mateo. I had never been to the show before so I decided to go with Ei to check it out. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but it was cool to check out the boats and look for deals on fishing gear. Fisherman's warehouse was selling old rods 50 cents a foot. I picked up a ten footer and a seven. Ten foot rod for 5 bucks, can't beat that. I also grabbed two Daiwa spinning reels - two for $25.

They also had a tank full of Largemouth Bass, Catfish, Stripers and baitfish for a demo. Here are some pics of the tank:

Launching out of Pittsburg

No not where the Steelers play. Pittsburg, California.

This was our first time launching out of McAvoy's in Pittsburg. It was me, Mark, Dad and JR. It was a slow day of fishing but JR landed this keeper before sunset.

Dad's Fishing Buddies

Last year, Dad invited a couple of his buddies out on the boat to fish for stripers in the Delta. On one trip we went out with the homeboy Joe. Another trip on Dec. 30 we went out with the homeboy Chris. Dad met these guys fishing at Clifton Court Forebay and thought they might get a kick out of trying for stripers from the boat.

During the trip with Chris, I managed to catch this 23" Striper out by Honker Bay on a fast incoming tide.

Quarry Lakes

Quarry Lakes is a spot close to where I live, about a 20 minute drive. The lake is stocked weekly with Mt. Lassen Trout. It can often be tough to get the fish to bite. I managed one trout in the 2-3 lb. class and on another trip another single trout in the 1-2 lb. range.



JR caught the world's smallest Bass

Catching up - Fishing Stories

Catching up (pun intended). I haven't blogged in a long time. But a lot has happened on the fishing front. We've been out with the boat several times since the last post. And also, tried some local lake action from the bank/pier. And lately, Mark and I have become hooked (pun intended again) on Sturgeon fishing.

Here are some pics to get caught up:

Back at the end of November, Mark, JR, Justin and I launched out of Martinez to fish the mothball fleet. This was one of the scariest adventures of my life. The fog was so thick you couldn't see 10 feet in front of the boat. It was cold and the bridge fog horn kept going off. Anyway, we managed to slowly make our way out by the fleet and these ghost ships appeared out of the fog. It was all very eerie. We hoped the fog would burn off by late morning but it lasted until the afternoon. During all of this, I managed to hook my first ever shaker Sturgeon. I caught two itty bitty ones and didn't even know they were on my line.

I'll post pic from our other trips in seperate posts)

Here's the first shaker sturgeon. Notice the thick fog in the background.
Here's the second shaker. Fog burned off.

Reserve ships from the Mothball Fleet.