Playin' Hooky

That's not Hockey...the Canadian National Pastime...

Those "of a certain age" will remember the phrase "Playing Hooky" meaning "To avoid one's responsibilities" or more accurately, "To skip school".

Playing Hooky is the offence, and TruckeeDave is Guilty! No I didn't skip school, I missed my self-imposed deadline for yesterday's installment of CorduroyPlanet ...my first Muff in 48 scheduled days all told.

I dropped the ball for many reasons. First off, I set the alarm for 04:20 and tried to watch NASA's LCROSS Probe strike the Moon...as I predicted, overcast skies obscured the Moon from view here at the Ancestral Digs...I logged on to NASA TV and watched...nothing happened that any camera saw...One wag online wondered if the thing landed in Mud! No cloud of ejecta was seen, no ejecta cloud was illuminated, no show...period. I fell back asleep listening to excited NASA Space Geeks (Scientists) talk about all the data...blah, blah, blah...zzzz...

When I awoke a second time, I threw together a cooler with lunch and met up with SturgeUrge for a rare Friday Halibut Hunt.

We launched from Richmond as always, and motored South towards the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge to take a last for 2009 shot at the tasty flatfish. There was a good incoming tidal current, but very little wind so it was a glorious morning on San Francisco Bay. Our best chance of actually hooking into the halibut wasn't going to be until 4PM at the Top of the Tide, but halibut don't have back pockets to keep tide books in. Our local PBS Affiliate KQED is airing it's new "Saving The Bay", a four part documentary this week, so we had plenty of new Bay Stuff to chat about while we waited for the fish to cooperate.

We enjoyed a lazy day on the Bay drifting ever northward before SturgeUrge suggested that we "Pick 'em up" and we blasted back down to Point Blunt on the Southeast corner of Angel Island to watch the Navy's Blue Angels do their final dress rehearsal for the weekend's Fleet Week Airshow. We went to this spot because it's as close to the action as the brisk afternoon westerly winds would allow us to comfortably bob around in SturgeUrge's 17ft deep vee fishing boat.

The Aces in their FA-18 Hornet Jets did their usual awesome show, and we watched for the 40 minutes or so that they were flying over the Bay between Alcatraz and the San Francisco Waterfront. At one point, the Blue Angels flew right by us...maybe 500 feet west of our position and about 100ft above the Bay, silhouetted against Angel Island! This was closer than anyone watching from San Francisco will be Saturday or Sunday! I took my camera back out of it's case and snapped some pictures, but they only did the one "Beauty Pass"...There was one other boat nearby, another under-20ft ski-boat who flew a Big American Flag...4 by 6 feet, at least! I guess he was Flying the Colors for the Blue Angels...not for the SturgeUrge I'm sure!

We motored slowly back up the Bay before dropping our baits back to the bottom...finally, at almost 5PM we got bit! We didn't notice a thing, but drifted a few more baits before calling it a day, and a season.

Note: I read a report from another fisherman who watched the Blue Angels' show...that they hooked and landed a 45lb White Sea Bass on Southampton Shoals at about the same time that we got bit at the Northernmost end of Southampton Shoals! White Sea Bass have been on the rebound in and around San Francisco Bay over the last decade or so...needless to say, SturgeUrge and I both need a WSB to punch our Dance Cards!

So, that's CorduroyPlanet for today...I just couldn't talk about the weather again, besides there's weather coming into the Inland Valley and the Mountains in just a couple more days! Then everyone will be talking about The Weather...I'll fit right in.