Sunday, August 17th, 2014
Started out early this morning, the fog was thick and the launching was exciting. Capt. Mark expertly guided his craft through the swells out into deeper water. The fishing was a little slow in the beginning but we hooked into a couple nice big Ling cod. After a while we are able to find a large school of black sea bass and we had hook up after hook up after hook up. Sometimes we even had two at a time coming into the boat. Caught our limit within four hours or so and then went out to pull the crab traps. The fog finally started breaking up and we got a good view of Haystack rock. We pulled in 25 to 30 nice size Dungeoness crab which was great fun. It was exciting being out on the ocean with some of the larger swells and the landing was pretty amazing too. Had a great day today and and we definitely will not be going hungry for a while. Thank you Captain Mark.
That was my dad's point of view, now heres mine...
Two boats sit in the parking lot, both attached to pick-up trucks. Darkness surrounds them. We hop out of the truck and stand next to the boat closest to us. The rest of my family is already there and ready to go. One by one, we all jump into the boat.
The truck hauls us to the beach where the waves crash down and we start speeding across the sand towards the shadow of the other truck and boat. The driver of our truck backs us into the lingering water and we get checked by another guy. He gives the okay and the boat goes farther in, fighting the waves, until we get the motor running. The first wave that hits us, dives past everyone else and goes right for my face. I blink and smile, wiping my wet hair away from my face.
The fishing was slow at first, catching a few here and there. Our Captain took us around to many different places, trying to get the schools of fish right below the boat so we could get them easily. As the sun rose, the fish came out and we caught more and more. Within a couple hours of being out on the water, we had caught more than half our limit of bass and two Ling Cod.
A couple hours later, we had all the fish we were allowed to catch and went for crab. My older brother and the Captain pulled up four crab traps, each with a large amount of nice sized crabs.
We were closer than expected to the shore, but then again, we were speeding to get there. Everyone was in position on the boat so as to help with the weight balance but I got to sit. When we saw the beach again, a horn sounded to warn the surfers in the area we were coming. We got the boat in, and jumped off.