Well, I had two new years resolutions last year. The good news is that only one of them will have to carry over to next year - my goal of getting a dorado off my kayak in CA waters. Yeah, it's a long shot, but I gotta try. Never really saw the opening this year so I didn't give it a shot.

My other resolution was to get a thresher off the kayak. I thought I blew it the first T-shark hookup I had. We'd launched early and worked La Jolla Canyon 'til around 10 am. One of my buddies had hooked up and fought a thresher for abo 30 min before it broke off soon after jumping right over the bow of another buddy's kayak (that was interesting). We headed for the kelp to see if any white seabass were around and I figured I should take my 100# shark leader off if I wanted a white. I took the leader off and dropped a bait back. As I'm letting line out, this tail comes up and splashes on my bait... T-SHARK!!! I let him eat, then set the hook hoping the circle hook would do its job and find its way to the corner of the fish's mouth. It didn't. After a couple seconds of screaming drag, my line went limp. Doh!

But I got another chance the following weekend. I was out by myself and was about to head back to shore after trolling all morning for nothing, but decided I'd swing by the canyon again before heading in. I got lucky and was bit by a T-shark. The fish was about 8' long and an estimated 70 pounds. It was released after a 40 min fight on 20# line.

A couple months later, I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a 2.5 day kayak fishing trip at San Clemente Island. On that trip of a lifetime, I caught the calico of a lifetime (mine at least) - a solid boiler rock 8 pounder. Though the fishing was a little slow, the beauty of the island and the awesome calicos made it my favorite trip of the year.

The YT and WSB bites off LJ never really materialzed this year. Poor bait conditions combined with cool, funky water conditions just weren't right for the fish.

The San Diego Rod and Reel club was holding a "Big Fish Tournament" in August. I figured, what the hell, it'd be cool to fish from a kayak and compete against a bunch of guys fishing from $50,000+ boats. So I paddled out about 7 nautical miles from La Jolla that day looking for Threshers and/or Marlin. Had I hooked one, I'm not sure how I would have landed it, let alone gotten it back to shore. But I figured I'd worry about that after I was hooked up. Well, I didn't find the threshers or the marlin (although the tourney winning marlin was caught just a few miles NE of where I turned back toward shore!), but I did find a 50# mako (kinda scary hooking it from a kayak) and a kelp paddie 6.5 miles out holding a bunch of molas and some yellows. Pulled a 10# yellow off that paddie and headed in. Now I know I can at least get out to dorado territory. The hard part is finding the paddie. Next summer......

Some other highlights...
- Won a new kayak in a kayak fishing tourney in SD.
- Made the best of some slow albacore fishing trips, landing at least 3 times the per-rod average of albies on both trips.
- Wrapped a bunch of rods and scored some sweet deals on them too by getting Lamiglas blem blanks.

In all it wasn't a bad year despite the slow summer season.

Resolutions for next year?
- MUST do some Baja trips with the kayak.
- Still gotta get that CA dodo on the kayak.
- Hook (land?) a marlin from the 'yak.

Happy holidays to all.

TL,
Adam