Steve and David are working in the SF area for a few months, and they have a boat and an apartment with lots of room, so I thought it might be a good time to drop in and see what wazzup.
I ended up driving the Honda to save on gas money (spent only $125 for 1600 miles!!), but I underestimated the small jet engine sound coming out of the exhaust pipe when the cruise was set on 85, and that got seriously annoying by the end of the trip.
Once my hearing recovered and the boys got off work for the weekend, we spent a lot of time on the water trying to figure out how to catch the local salmonoids and various other fishies. The weather was just OK, with some windy days and not much sun until the afternoons. I somehow managed to still burn my face even though I have very few pictures of when the sun was out. It is pretty neat boating around with so much scenery, both natural and man-made.
One day we fished for sturgeon near an old 'ghost fleet' where they park and decommission old military ships. There are almost a hundred huge ships anchored in a very small area - it was really quite eerie in the morning fog.
Overall we had a great time trying to learn the area and catch some fish in the process. I hooked my first striped bass, which put up a great fight on medium bass tackle, even though it was only 18" long.
Another day we went out into the open ocean 5 or 6 miles, which was pretty exciting considering the size of Steve's boat. I would have inserted the picture of Dave's salmon right here, but we lost it at the boat....grrrrr....after trolling for hours and hours....aaaaahhhh!!! Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm saying I'd rather be working or anything silly like that.
We did manage to find plenty of bottomfish, and I thought I'd throw in this picture of a cute little jack smelt (and the fish is kinda cool too) and a really spotted ling cod to finish things up. In the future we'd like all fish pictures to contain more fish and less fisherman. Oh well, hopefully there's a Next Time.
