Good Friday was a holiday at work, so, I went fishing. I took my Kickboat over to Capitola and launched off the beach. I went out to the outside kelp points for nothing but a few rockfish, then drifted back to the beach to look at some eye candy. :P As I passed a lone patch of kelp in shallow I scared something big. I started targeting small patches of kelp and at about 2:30 I finally caught one after missing 3 bites. All the bites seemed to come shortly after the sun would show through the fog. All the hits were on a olive backed, clear w/ silver flake bellied 4" FishTrap on a 1oz head. She went 29" and had a lot of eggs but they didn't seem very large.
On another note, I owe DougT a thanks. When we were at the Delta region Smith's Tourney, he talked about how he had removed the swivel base from the seat on his Kickboat. We both have Water Skeeter River Tamer II's and it got me thinking about how noisy the swivel base is and I finally removed it last weekend. I think it might have made a difference in how many hits I got. It used to lock/unlock with a loud click at the worst possible moments.

Tight lines,
Wade

that must have been a great fight..any pics?

You're welcome, Wade. Congrats on the big 'but too!

That damn seat swivel had been driving me crazy forever and I had tried to think of how to fix it. It was so simple to just get rid of it that I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner. The damn thing weighed over three pounds and made so much racket that I think it scared a lot of fish away. The first 2 times I went out without it I caught 20+ bass and 30+ bass on back to back trips to Rancho Seco and I know it made a big difference.

Doug

I'm waiting for the shop on the peir to e-mail me the pics.
That swivel sure seems to make a difference. I used to just accept it as "One of those things". Now that I've gotten rid of it I could kick myself for not doing it sooner. I know of 3 times where I saw fish spook from it as I was about to flip to them, and that's saying something since I usually don't flip much at all.
Tight lines,
Wade

PS: I'm thinking that I'll head out there again weekend after next. If anyone wants to join me let me know. The mooring dock should be in use by then so no more surf launches! Just spend $5 in the shop (I usually buy 3 swimbaits and 1 or 2 heads) and launching off the peir works fine.

<bump> to be seen with invite
Tight lines,
Wade