[glenniesan]

First time hoopin for myself. Stopped by OEX Oside for a few items - thanks for the help as always Nate! My fishn partner and I hit the ramp round 8ish and paddled around till about midnight for 1 legal and six shorts. Dropping in 20 - 40'. Half-ish moon, nice warm, soft breeze, night to be out. Not a whole lot of PBers out this night, we were the only yakkers. Bugs are certainly there though. A few lessons learned: - Kelp in the hoop sucks! Pulled up about 500 lbs worth (it seemed). - Like any fishing good bait is key. We had some ol' frozen mackers which were not the best quality. AND we didn't bring enough anyway to change out. - Bring along your hat! It's night but for those of us who paddle the hat will keep your dome dry(er). - I think one way to minimize sea-dogs chewin on your hoops is to drop them and paddle away, observe them from a distance. I'm sure the dogs key in on the glow sticks & floats but they followed us when we moved off our drops... so just sayin. - Lights and more lights, the head lamp LED will not be enough to light you up in the night. I had some reflective tape left over after prepping the buoys and stuck it on my yak - works great and is a BIG improvement for visibilty OTW ITD.