[Paddle and Flies]

Got a call from Eric Kara Friday morning letting me know there were snow flurries on the Grapevine. Eric was headed for the tournament along with golden arrow and his dad Glen. I think it was about 2 pm when I reached the Grapevine, just in time to do something I hadn’t done in over thirty years, drive through a snow blizzard. I was in that situation for as long as it took to drive over the Grapevine. When I wasn’t getting covered by snow I was getting hammered by hale. There were a few moments where I lost visibility altogether and then the sun came shinning through. I spent the next several minutes thanking GOD--it was that scary.
With the exception of some rain the rest of the drive was uneventful--thank GOD--again.
Drove to Oceanside picked up the Hobies and then drove back down five to Doheny Beach. I found my campsite without a problem. I called the guys on the cell, they were out on the water hooping for lobters, a couple of small bugs and two crabs I believe.
That night while the guys were on the water by the jetting some one drove a truck off the jetty into the water. The guys were almost ran over by coastguard boats on route to the scene of the accident. Found out the next day it was a fellow using his girlfriends truck to commit suicide.
On a more cheerful note after talking to Eric and making dinner plans for later, I sat up camp. Shortly after that I met my neighbors behind me, Kent his wife Jean and their daughter McKenna. After exchanging formalities I went about the business of unwrapping my kayak from the shipping wrapping it was in. I had a foot of the kayak showing when I heard Kent swear, he sounded upset so I asked what was wrong. He said his dog had just run off. He’d opened the door to his crate to feed him and he took off.
Being a dog lover and an owner of four dashounds. I offered to help, Kent told me the dogs name was Toto, I didn’t think twice about that--a fact I would regret. So there I am about ten minutes later walking around the camp yelling Toto—here—Toto. I can hear Kent in the distance he was yelling the same thing only he was doing it through clenched teeth, if you can imagine that. I asked a couple that were out for a walk if they had seen a little dog running around. They were very polite when they told me no and how sorry they were. It was when they were walking away and I heard the woman said in a low voice “ sorry Dorothy” as she was trying not to giggle, that I realized the humor of my situation. I was walking around camp yelling for a dog-named Toto. Although everyone seemed a bit leery of me they were very polite. I’d probably covered a good half of the camp walking around yelling Toto when I came up to this one site with a big group of people and asked them had they seen a little dog. A woman in the group asked rather seriously and somewhat annoyed--your serious, your actually looking for a dog named Toto? She finished up with nope haven’t seen him. As I was walking away this time--I heard this woman say “ My-my Dorothy hasn’t aged well and her beard doesn’t help much” which was followed by a round of hysterical group laughter.
That was it--Toto was on his own after that. After maybe an hour or more of Kent and I walking around camp yelling Toto, Kent’s wife Jean opened their trailer door and called. Toto wasn’t more than five feet away hiding under a bush.

Spent that night lying in bed very depressed listening to the thunder and rain as well as watching the lightning, all the time thinking there’s no way that the tournament will happen now. I called Eric about 6 am who had just woken up in a puddle of water in his tent. We drove down to the launch site expecting to see an empty parking lot.
What we didn’t see when we got there was any parking places. What we did see was close to 200 yakfishermen setting up their yaks to go fishing. About an hour later we were standing on the beach ready to do a surf launch. By the way this surf launch was the christening of my Hobie adventure which handled the surf just fine. Picking up my yak the night before there was no time to really rig up a fish finder. So once on the water I was fishing blind. I worked the area between a huge rock and the jetting. I casted and trolled a flie that was a mackerel imitation. I was getting short hits that jerked my 9 wt back but no hook ups. Then the rain came.

Now the only thing that will get me off the water once I’m fishing is—lightning. As far as I’m concerned handling rough water conditions and fishing while your doing it is all part of kayak fishing. I was doing OK on the water pedaling or paddling but when the rain started coming down, because of all the lightning the night before, it was a bit unnerving. Because of that along with some frustrations of not having my kayak rigged properly, when I saw about half a dozen others going in I followed. I would regret that decision more than I did running around the camp yelling Toto!
After putting my yak up I came back to the beach and saw that the few of us that pulled out were the only ones that pulled out. The water was covered with yakfishermen that were braving the elements “ No spoiled brothers here”.
Eventually the rained stopped and the decent weather held, the tournament was most definitely on. I thought about going back out but remembered the frustrations I’d dealt with and decided against it.

I then wandered over too where they were setting up for the festivities. Folks were cooking for the barbeque, setting up tents, getting ready for the raffle. Big or small raffles are hard work and this one was big. There were about five different yaks, who knows how many smaller prizes, imagine rounding all those prizes up.
As the day went by fishermen brought in their fish to be weighed. When the deadline of 1:30 drew near fishermen started coming off the water, by 2:30 the area where the festivities were to be held was fill with kayak fishermen and friends. I believe the limit of entrants allowed for the tournament reach its max. Somewhere around 3:00 they started feeding a small army of hungry yak fishermen and fed them well I might add. The raffle followed, excellent prizes were won. That small army of yak fishermen got to enjoy each others company. Bottom Line? You wanna see kayak fishing at its finest come to a tournament like this one.
On the water or off this whole experience was excellent.
Well done Jason and friends.