Satisfaction At Last!

After hearing about Skunk, Jimmy, and Kevin's recent tog shenanigans, I've been feeling left out. So I took Friday off, drove down from Richmond pre dawn. Met up with Jimmy and Skip and made it out to the island to find Skunk showing off his recent catches. It was a pleasant paddle out, but as soon as we get there, the wind picked up dramatically. It was one of those days that seemed like nothing was going right. I had to pull anchor and reposition over and over again. At one point, the tide and wind were going in opposite directions so I felt like it was impossible to stay where I wanted. I must have lost about 7 or 8 rigs and had nothing to show for it. And to make it worse, Jimmy pulled up tog after tog. I think Skip pulled up 2 or 3 as well, one that had to be close to citation. About 10 minutes after Jimmy and Skip leave I get a call from DV8 wondering how things were going. I vent my frustration, hang up, and WHAM! FINALLY! A nice 19 inch tog.


I tried for a few hours longer but nothing. Part of me felt like "at least I caught one" and another part of me was like "what the hell am I doing wrong? I know they're here"
The paddle back SUCKED! 11+ hours on the water and only one fish and a wicked sunglass burn. I was contemplating going out to the HRBT lightline, but that paddle back kicked my ass.

Beer, pizza, done.

I spent the night at my parents and got up pre dawn again. Picked up some more bait to go with what I had left over the day before. Met BRB and launched at 7:15 headed towards the island. After a nice smooth paddle out, I hooked up quickly. Poor Thom lost his anchor right off the bat. The current can be scary fast. I continued to fight the togs all day and ended up with 15 to 20 ranging from 13" up to 20.5". I even caught one with a tag. I called it in and released with the tag still in.

It turns out that Kevin's friend Zach had caught that fish two week ago and was tagged then. Amazing!

I only lost 2 rigs and only had to pull anchor 2 or 3 times. The wind was nice until we started coming back. It was a great day, worth the wait. I'll be in S. Korea for the next two weekends (grandmother's 80th birthday), so I HAD to get my tog fix.

Satisfaction at last!