Long Beach Lonely Nights

Someone was out float tubing in pure darkness

Yesterday I had planned to fish Los Alamitos Bay at night but a last minute call from The Major changed that idea.  Since it was his last few days in California before he gets reassigned to the War College, I met all the boys at the local brewery instead of getting my line wet.  So today I decided I would make up for that.

Its been forever since I've fished the surf especially at night.  The last time was years ago when Kyung and I slammed the corbina around midnight.  I believe that was one of the first corbina I ever caught on a fly.  With the tide charts predicting a strong tide, I was confident I'd get on some fish.  Casting the Long Beach Leader system took some getting used to,  I hadn't used that system in such a long time, it was hard to get the timing down.  Trying to cast your entire floating line with 20 or more feet of straight mono is a pain in the ass.  No wonder I stopped fishing here years ago.

No luck tonight.  Perhaps another night.

Fishing tonight was slow.  I arrived just after the sun set and fished to about 10pm.  Not one strike.  I did see a very small bait fish swimming everywhere .  With the headlamp I could see they were greyish with blue eyes.  Not sure what they were though.  I tried a hoonie, hoonie 2 and a small clouser after I noticed all the small fish.  None proved effective.  Decided to call it quits as I need to wake up early for trout tomorrow.  I did see another flyfisherman out there in a tube.  What a nutcase.  Speaking with him briefly on the way out, he let me know that he managed a few dink sand bass.