The Master's Lucky Day

On the whole, my fishin blog is as self-referencing, self-congratulating, and self-centered as any blog in the business -- but I'm trying to change. I vow now that at least half this post will be about someone else's good fortune, and the other half will be about my bad. Because we all know that success or failure in fishing is just dumb luck, right?

The Bay Area Migration Master has been mentioned before in these pages. To the degree that anyone can predict where the striped bass are at any point in time, to the extent that most or all of the fish are actually in a synchronized migration, Jim's guesses are generally way above average. Some people say that in Spring, the fish will be moving up into the spawning rivers, and that you won't find them in the bay or delta. This is not 100% right. In winter, the mass of the fish are supposed to be in the delta, but you might go out in the muddy cold waters of the bay in February and hook the biggest old Moe you ever saw, so that's not strictly true either.

I think Jim scores high because he generally does not generalize so broadly. He uses his knowledge of specific areas of the bay or delta, checks water quality and wind forecasts, and then lends an ear to any reports that might come along. For instance, we had been thinking about paddling on the delta this Saturday, when a text message came to Jim's phone:

"There are no fish in the delta."

Since this paradoxically plain and cryptic message came from a trusted source who fished the dawn patrol that day, we decided to pay heed. Most people who fish the delta probably know that particularly fishless feeling that smells like skunk and feels like a bad case of lockjaw. Sometimes the delta will deal you an awful hand.

So we went to another of Jim's favorite spots on the bay, and guess what -- Snap On!!! Jim stuck a small one within five minutes. When this happens, you troll with much greater optimism. He hit another one and it was two to zero (but who's counting?) until I managed a decent one on a hair-raiser jig. Encouraged by this, I tied some feathers on the end of the fat line and gave that a go, while Jim extended his lead:



I think it was already four to one when I got a really good strike, with the rod dipping way down. I turned around and saw a really large splash about ten feet out from the beach before -- Snap Off! -- my line went slack. Just my luck, the rusty old treble hook on the end of my plug came back with only two points left. (Note: replacing hooks after salting them down daily in Baja may even be better at improving your luck than wearing lucky hats).

Jim didn't see me hook either of these fish, and I wonder if he thought I was making things up. Conversely, I was right on hand when he hooked the fish of the day. There's a big difference between a 20 inch and a 24 inch striper -- two plus pounds, according to this source. You could also tell the difference by the way this one dragged Jim into the beach:


With all this, Jim's first day out in a while was a damn good one. Very lucky! And I was glad for him. However, when he decided he'd had his fill after a few hours, I still wanted to stay and keep looking for my own luck. I waved him goodbye as he headed back to the beach, and since the wind was starting to lay down, I got out the fat line again. Just maybe some fly flinging could get me attached to a fine two foot fish, I was thinking . . .

Whipping out some line on my very first cast, I heard a little "plunk" next to the boat, and looked down to see the detached spool of my fly reel sinking rapidly into the drink. A desperate left-hand grab almost capsized me, but did not come up with the spool. It was on the bottom of 7 feet of pea-green water, and my line started to billow in the current. Oh my. I felt dumb as a frozen hake doing it, but there was no remedy other than to just pull my end of the line up into the cockpit and hope to a) recover all the line and then haul up the spool by the spool knot, or b) have it hit a tangle in the backing or something, and come up a bit sooner. The latter, though, would require luck. So forget it.

Has anyone else ever hauled 100 feet of nylon backing with their bare hands? It is an idiot's chore of true enormity. The backing tangled up around the line which tangled up around my legs, and I had to keep correcting the boat's position to stay near the sunken spool, which sometimes tangled backing around the paddle, which tangled it around my arms. Boy was I glad Jim had gone around the point and was not there to witness this. Finally I got the spool to rise up to the surface. Then, after twenty minutes of untangling and cutting loops of backing, I paddled for home, a beaten, unlucky man for sure.

Or was it really so bad? I had some fun with my buddy the Migration Master, watched him boat a couple of fine fish, and at least did not get completely skunked on a beautiful breezy Saturday. What's more, when I got back to my truck, I found a fourteen-dollar topwater lure under my windshield wiper. "Hey, where'd that come from?" Just coincidence that Jim and I had been comparing topwater lures earlier in the day? Either way, it felt like good luck to find it there.