Typically, I have Christmas dinner at my best friends parents, or his brother and sister in-laws....

But this year, they were both having dinner elsewhere, so I was like.... "Ahhhhhh.... You mean I have to go catch Stripers on my new micro-light ?

Geeeez, that really just broke my heart...... Not !

The only part that sucked, was that I came down with a stinking cold on the 24th .......and it went from foggy, and cold, to light rain at about 11 am.

Besides all of that though, the trip went almost exactly as planned. Because of the timing of the tide, and the rain forecast, I knew it would be a very early trip... like 6am (an hour before first light) to noon or so.

Gave myself until 8am to catch my bait.... and at 7:50am, I caught my second Split Tail. Got to the spot, and stuck a decent little 8 lb'er on a live-lined Splitty, in about the first 10 minutes. The new Sahara worked absolutely flawlessly ! That was fun

Later, I had 2 or 3 whacks.... but when the Splitty would run to the surface, the Stripers would not follow ? Oh well.

Put on a small weight to drag it down a little... Stuck one more about 8 lbs, and a 14 lb'er on the heavier gear. Also had 2 more that felt like good ones hooked up and ripping  (1 on the micro-light, one on the heavier gear) but of which both came off I know that at least some of these losses could be prevented if I didn't remove my hook barbs....

But since I release most of these fish anyway, and also, since the BIG Stripers will usually swallow the Split Tail completely, and are not likely to come off, barbless hook or not, I'll stick to barbless.

Long story short, I had fun. Quite a bit of action. Caught a few decent fish. Good test of the new Sahara 1000.

.......and my cold is actually better today Guess I just needed to catch some fish so I could feel better. Never mind the cold and rain   LOL

Peace,

Fish

PS, I was holding off on catching any monsters until tomorrow.... You know, with the rain and all, I didn't want to get the camera wet No rain tomorrow though !

Come on monster ! Now I'm ready !  8-)

Ugh...i've been shoveling snow.

Ahhh man..... I'm sorry.

Would you believe here in Cali, only about a 2 hour drive from me they have got a snow pack of like 12 ft or more already !

But here's the really insane / rediculous / crazy / whacked out thing..... people from down here in the valley, actually drive up there to play in that frozen crap ! Are they freaking kidding me ?!?! That's one of the things I love most about living here..... No freaking miserable arse SNOW !

Snow is just cold, wet, and lame. NOTHING fun about it.

Oh, did I mention I hate snow ?   LOL

Perace,

Fish