For the past few years in the summer I've been tagging along with Nico chasing the elusive beach striper. Beach striper fishing can be pretty exciting, it can also be utterly boring and aggravating :) This year the fishing has been so-so for us. The typical trip involves a lot of hard work hiking around and blind casting for hours to get 1-3 bites per night.

Last night we decided to get a little more gung ho and take the kickboats. Kickboating the open ocean south of Pacifica can be a dicey proposition but Nico had been watching the weather and it looked perfect. We got down and launched in the late afternoon off Rockaway in the corner, it was ankle slapper condition which was killer.

Looking at the water, it looked like it would be great for stripers but we didn't get any striper action by the rocks and surge lines. The rockcod fishing was pretty steady though, we picked up a dozen brown and blue rockfish on 5 and 6" big hammers in 12-30 feet of water, keeping about half of them and tossing back the small ones. I thought the cod fishing would be better since I don't think these areas get fished much but there was no sign of lings or cabezon. Here's a typical blue rockfish

http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/7_13_06_rob_bluebass.jpg

The evenings haul
http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/daily_reports/7_13_06_rockcod.jpg

After dark we hit a few more beaches looking for stripers. Nico drilled one about 8lbs around 10pm. Didn't get a pic. We covered a lot of water just walking down the beach casting. Tried another spot around midnight and I got hit on the 9" MS Slammer. At night sometimes the fish will hit very close to shore which is always fun :) It was another little guy about 7lbs but it managed to swallow the entire rear end of my bait. I was going to let it go but it was bleeding and getting the hooks out was a nightmare.

Some pics of that fish
http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/d/13233-2/owie.jpg

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/5147-rob_striper.jpg

We fished late but that was it for the night.

Here's a few pics from the last two trips... Doing the same kind of stuff just hiking the beaches around pacifica in the evening and at night.

This fish went 11-4 and was caught on a 6" Big Hammer in #13 baitfish
http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/d/13161-2/7_1_06_rob_11-4_striper3.jpg

This fish went 13-8 and was caught on a heavy iron called a Miki
http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/d/13138-2/13-8_striper.jpg

I didn't set out to get bit by the striper bug but it's been pretty fun. Apparently this year is kind of an off year, or just an average year as far as beach fishing goes but there's fish around if you go a lot and fish hard.