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| Subject: Hoopin up a storm | |
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Author: Jim Day |
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Date Posted: 1042013528PST .... the perfect storm in a teacup ;-)  Sometimes I forget just how much I enjoy being on the water. I get wrapped up in work etc... and I really forget what it means to me. My boat sat idle for about four months this year. I'm not sure why but I just didn't take it out. Now that I'm back on the water I can't help but say "What was I thinking??" I sure love being out there. Since fishing's slow I've kind of taken up hooping big time. The Halibut aren't going and it's high bang for the buck as far as local fishing goes. There's a lot of self proclaimed experts out there but let me be the first to say I don't know really jack about hooping. It's one of those the more you know the more you realize you don't know. It's one thing to hoop the local breakwall, another to find them out away from large manmade structures. Hooping is like fishing but also not like fishing. First of all it's just a lot more work then fishing. Pulling nets all night will bust your butt if your fishing alone. Your not as mobile as when fishing butts or bass. Once you drop a net your stuck in that local for the next hour. You just can't move around that much so it's hard to cover a lot of ground. I've been focussing with some success on the North end of the bay. The goal is to drop a net next to each rock out there until I get kind of an idea of where to concentrate my efforts. Some days I get them some I don't. One night I got five bugs in a couple hours of a small piece of structure only to return twice since for nothing. You tell me did they move or was that just a good night? It's kind of weird you never know exactly what's going on. One thing I've found as they seem to like severe weather and changes. I don't know why but it really gets them going. So I kind of try to hit them the day the stuff hits. It's a fine line you want to be there when it changes but you don't want to get stuck in the $#!t. When I heard about the Santa Ana condition coming in I figured it was worth a shot. I've fished Santa Ana's a lot in the bay. Wind moves a lot like water. If you've ever fished a river much after a while you get to know the current and what it's going to do. The thing I like about Santa Ana's as for the most part the wind is pretty predictable. It's windy but I know where it's usually going to come from and when it's about to blow. I got an early start arriving at the ramp at sunset. It was a zoo of sail boaters PWC's. I probably waited for twenty minutes. When I cleared the wall it was pretty calm. Great warm weather. Headed up the line and started soaking the nets off Topanga. Sure enough the critters were out in force. http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=27703 Spider crabs, rock crabs, even some big red crabs I've not seen before. Each net came up with a few. I must of thrown at least a dozen back, including several females with eggs. http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=27704 Pretty soon I pulled up a nice big bug. Made my evening. That number jumped to two within a few hours and I was pretty happy. Nothing like finding some quality lobsters on a new spot. As long as I get a bug or two I'm happy If a get a few more it's a very good night.. Lots of my friends wonder why I like hooping so much. Out alone in the dark all night. It's really kind of a weird thing to do. I've thought about it a lot and came up with a loose top ten. 1. I'm the only one out there: no boats, no traffic, no birds. 2. It's peaceful, quality time alone by myself. 3. It gives me chance to try new things. 4. You never know what your going to pull up. 5. I don't have to get up early. 6. I get to stay up late. 7. Bugs are great to eat. 8. No bait to buy. 9. Most guys don't do it.... 10. ....and it's just plain cool. About midnight the wind started up so I pulled the nets, switched to the short ropes, then headed in tight to Santa Monica Breakwall. I've had some luck there. I usually manage one bug maybe two. Personally I don't like hooping there that much because of the beach lights blind you and you have to deal with the constant surge ripping through the rocks. It's a very spooky place to hoop. Much more dangerous then a normal breakwall and not a good place for a beginner IMO. It's close to the beach though so hoop-able in "Normal" Santa Anna conditions. Well for once the weather man was right. This was no average Santa Anna. http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=27706 That's not snow, but blowing sand from the beach. Couldn't miss it as it was constantly in my eyes. I get a kick form weird things. Things that scare most people just excite me. Initially I'd say it was blowing thirty to forty. Though a little wild I felt perfectly safe and it was actually kind of fun. At least it was warm ( a big deal for me ) ;-) and it was kind of interesting to watch the city go through it's mini disaster from out on the water. Maybe twenty fire engines raced by on the way to Malibu and every few minutes you could see the "ground based lightning" Power lines were breaking and each time it happened it would light up the sky. Every few minutes the sky would completely light up silhouetting the Santa Monica mountains. Spooky but very cool to watch, the valley must of really taken a beating. The wind stayed up maybe thirty minutes then dropped down to a workable twenty or so knots. I managed a few sets pulled up a ton of crabs and picked up another legal bug. It was just getting interesting when the wind came back hard. Just ripping: a sustained at 30 to forty with gusts much higher. It was wicked, even close to the beach very dicey. We're talking three foot whitecaps made in less then a hundred yards. I'm just glad I wasn't further outside. I didn't see much point in trying to fight it. Just too hard to pull the nets. I'd power up foreword but as soon as I'd slow the wind would literally spin the boat around. I'd either be too far away or right on top of net. About the third time I pulled a rope off the motor I said: That's it I'm going in. A good part of hooping is boat finesse. It's all about lining up just right so the pull is as short as it can be and straight up. Usually you just pull up from down current, grab the rope and let the inertia carry you above the net. In wind that just doesn't work. One great thing about my boat is with the extension it backs really straight even in a high wind. The motor will hold it and the boat pulls out directly down wind. Kind of a reverse power sea anchor. The full transom allows all this without getting water on the deck. You can literally stay in one place canceling the drift then move from side to side by slightly steering the motor one way or the other. I guess you'd have to see it. At any rate that's how I pulled the nets. I found I could back up along side of the net then crab over keeping the rpm up to hold position to the wind. I'd just line it up pick up the rope put a wrap on the winch, and hoist it up holding in position in gear. Very tough way to pull nets but it worked. Couldn't of been done without the full transom and my net puller. One of the sets had almost a hundred pounds of kelp in it. Without the puller I don't think I could of got it to the boat in that weather. The trip down to MDR was actually a blast. Riding downswell with a forty knot tailwinds is a trip. Not like I had to worry about spray it was all landing way in front of me ;-) The closer I got the less wind there was. In fact by the time I got to the breakwall the wind had dropped to a five knots. Now I was faced with a dilemma: just headed in, or make another set. I'd already hooped almost 8 hours, I had some bugs and the weather was questionable. Then again I've never hooped the MDR Breakwall. What can I say I decided to give it a try ;-) In my defense I'm only going to say that often in Santa Ana conditions it blows like hell up in Santa Monica but isn't so bad down south around MDR. In fact I've seen this condition so often I almost expect it. Compared to what I'd been in the Breakwater just was downright peaceful. Not a bad place to drop the nets and it's big. I know most guys fish it all the time but for me this was the first time. Big sets were easing up and down the wall but it really was very comfortable, I'll definitely have to try it again. With it's height I was thinking that if the wind held east it would be fine even if it came back up. Well It didn't. I got the nets down and the wind instantly switched to the North and started blowing like crazy. I don't know for sure but I's say sustained over forty with gusts maybe up to sixty, maybe even higher. I've never seen anything like it. Actually surreal. I wish it had been daytime. I once was in wind like that off Magu and they said it was gusting to 80. Pretty close to the same thing. All I can say is it's the most wind I've seen while on the water, absolutely unbelievable. If I had been anywhere else I'd of been pretty nervous. My take though was I was right outside the harbor and the wind was blowing away from the rocks. How much trouble could I really get in. If nothing else I was in swimming distance ;-) My initial reaction was to wait it out. I figured this time it was just too much to pull the nets. Man it was really blowing. The wind felt alive. Gusts were literally grabbing the boat and heeling it over like a sailboat. http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=27708 You might be able to see some streaks in the picture. Spray off my bow was snaking across the top of the waves carrying as much as a eighty feet. The whole sea was covered by snaking wraith like spray running over the top of the water like some high speed fog. Just amazing to watch, absolutely stunning!! For about an hour I held my position off the breakwall both motors in reverse like a sea anchor. It was rough but I could do it and the only other option was to go in and abandon the nets. If worse came to worse I could always anchor. I rigged it up standby in case the motors went down to spray, or a fuel line clog. I was actually having a good time just watching the wind and water. Tried to get a few shots of the breakwater flag stretched out in the wind but it was just too rough to get a clear pic. Eventually all the bouncing started to wear me out though I figured it was time to get the nets and get out of there. I figured that if I could hold position with both motors I could pull the nets. I just had to get above them as stabilize stern to wind. I tried running uphill bow foreword but it was just too windy and rough to hold coarse. I got turned around several times and I was pretty concerned the wind would spin me around on top of the nets. Also it was just plain wet as all hell. Even in the warm wind I didn't want to get that wet. Backing this time was out of the question, I couldn't make progress even with both motors. Finally I decided to run downhill turn around the breakwater and work back up inside. I didn't like it much because if I lost power I'd be uphill of the rocks but it seemed like the best option. Inside was a little calmer wind wise but not much. To make matters worse the seas were much more confused. Outside it was rough but at least everything was coming from the same direction. Wind was ripping east down the channel and three foot chop was clashing with North driven seas at the entrance. It was a mess. The boat handled and I could make progress but I was basically bounced around like a pinball. I once lost an engine on a different boat in conditions like that due to debris stirred up in the tank. That became a big concern. I certainly didn't want to loose my engines in that slop right in front of the rocks. When I finally got around and outside I found I could hold the drift in reverse with both engines at about half throttle. I'd relax it a bit to slip downswell to line up with a net then increase the throttle to hold. Once Parallel I'd turn the motor slightly then crab over and pull it. All five came up without a hitch. Man was I pleased!! You remember in perfect storm when he's fighting the seas and laughing and yelling. Well I'm not sure it exactly fits but in the absence of audience more then one: "I am the man" was shouted out to that rough dark sea. (at least my boat didn't sink afterwards) ;-) After that it was all a cake walk. It was a little difficult getting back around the uphill end but once I did I ran hard then turned up the North side to cut down on the seas. I could only do about 3.5 knots up the channel but it was no problem. Halfway in the Sheriff pulled out to check me out. I guess they thought I was in trouble but they turned around when he saw I was fine. It was pretty cool powering up the channel wrong side, both motors, with no-one to bitch at me for making a wake ;-) Back at the ramp several people stared in amazement as I pulled up. to the dock. They were even more surprised when I showed them the catch ;-) http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshot.html?id=27705 What can I say: I caught some bugs, had an adventure, and at the end of it had a good dinner......  ........ and you know what's funny. After all that the only thing I had to do to my boat is wash it down. Not a thing broke not a thing went wrong. Probably the roughest conditions it will ever be in, and I never even fired up the bilge pump. At the end of the day only the gear problems I had were two of my blinking lights s@#ewed up and the only thing wrong with them is the internal switch broke and they got stuck on. I guess that beat the other way around ;-) All and all not a bad day for the conditions ;-)...LOL I don't know maybe it's crazy but I had a great time. It's always fun to be out there and I certainly learned a lot about my boat and how it will handle in rough conditions. Hey: it's not like I was twenty miles offshore....well at least not this time ;-) Tight lines, Jim [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |