Went out for bugs last night and we got our butts kicked. The water was like a fricken washing machine....one second it was calm and the next you're being dragged in these weird directions. Even the kelp was a mess, my sonar was marking a weird bottom in the area where the kelp used to be, we thought it all got washed away but it was still there, it was all sitting at the bottom, we're thinking it was all tangled up and handed come undone yet.
When we arrived we were about to drop our first set of nets in open water but changed our minds as soon as we noticed the surface conditions, couldn't tell if the swells were coming or going. Some swells appeared to be headed north, some south, some east, some north west.....you get the picture. We decided to dropped our nets on the protected side and even those were being dragged around, you'd drop your net here and it would end up fifty yards from there. Hell, I carry only ambush nets and some of them were coming up with three to four pound rocks in them.
After about an hour or so the surface conditions appeared to have calmed down so we decided to drop some nets out in the open. Paddled back to the inside after the drop and roughly ten minutes later I don't see my glow stick. As I start to paddle out I'm thinking I lost an ambush net....bummer. About a minute later I see it bobbing about fifty yards away from where I dropped it. I didn't even have to paddle to it, the current took me straight to it.
After pulling each set about three or four times Bryguth and I decided to call it a day and head back in. The conditions were to nasty and we were spending to much time chasing nets around. I went 0-2 and Bryguth ended up with a keeper. Time to put away the lobster gear and start greasing up those gears
At the end of the day I'd have to say that this has been the best hooping season for me, even better than other hooping seasons when I owned a boat. Final numbers for the 2010/2011 season is thirty keepers in seven trips.....not bad for my first season of hooping in a yak.
