It's been pretty rough lately as I'm currently taking a full load of extremely compressed 6 week (normally 18 week) winter intersession classes plus work. Anyways, I finally get a break and have some time away from the "real world." Which means no more thinking about my second set of midterms when class just started 2 weeks ago.. just think fishing!

So I call up Tsunami to go fishing he's like the 1000th Brian here in Calfishing so I'll call him by his nickname =). He was kinda busy but had a couple hours off, which meant that we weren't cruisin down to Perris or anything like that. So instead, we settled for some puddle fishing.. OH YAY! :/ Fishing is fishing I guess.. and it's much much much better than studying or working thats for sure!

So now the question was where to fish? We get on the puter and do a quick search on Yahoo! and fortunately found a couple local O.C. spots. We couldn't make up our minds as to where to go, so we just threw a dart at the dart board and off we were to this little park somewhere in O.C..

We get there in the mid afternoon hours and scope the so-called pond. "Hmmmm.. it doesn't look much like that beautiful picture on the website does it? and boy is it puny.. look at all them barbeque'rs and picknickers and exercisers... ooh and those kids throwing rocks and trash in the water... and that dude casting a 10 pound shot putt on a 5 foot tuna stick.. oh boy! we're truly in fishing heaven!-- bah..no big deal.. Lets just fish!!"

We start off with finesse jigs and managed to yank out a couple fish.. We'd pull em out of the water and say "awww look how cute that thing is.." They were nothing but shorties. The water was kinda dirty but not freezing, probably because the pond was so ridiculously shallow and it being a warm day. We do a couple laps around the pond casting here and there and finally chill out on a little bench situated on a point. The sun is now pretty low and we're just shoot'n the sh*t.. I decide to tie on a slammer that I just got from BWW to see how it swam.. (btw.. thanks CJ for that exchange!)

I cast the "nun-chucks" out and continue on with the conversation with Tsunami.. After a couple winds I see a huge swirl where my line disappeared into the dingy water and Booya! there's suddenly nothing but tugging weight on my rod.. Shocked and completely taken off guard, I wind recklessly faster and harder--mindlessly bulldogged the poor thing in.. I just thought to myself "I have 20# triplefish camo on with the drag buckled all the way down and besides.. how big could this fish really be anyways??"

It felt pretty good and fought pretty hard in the begginning but it was just weight after that.. and it never really broke the surface either. hmm.. might have been the reckless style of fishing I was demonstrating to Tsunami.. =) I would "highly" not recommend the "bulldog technique" (most of you guys probably already now this..) ..I later found out that I almost ripped the hook out as it was barely hooked on the front trebles.. =) Another lesson learned. Thx fo' da extra hand Tsunami!

Anyhows.. here's the result seconds later:


http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/681.jpg


Not exactly a trophy class fish but pretty surprised to catch something this big under the conditions--especially in such a tiny little pond.. on a slammer.. I definitely wasn't expecting it. We had a pretty good laugh after that too. It was hillarious! I guess I might be taking a couple more "bait-testing" breaks to this lil puddle from now on.. just to see what else swims under that murky wattah =). SHAKA!

Attachment #1, (.jpg file)