Surf's Up!...

[Anne Vitale]

Thanks Mark. There is a West Marine near my office in San Rafael. I'll check them out next week.

I went out to Drake's yesterday afternoon and came home shortly thereafter. First of all, even though I only live 20 minutes away from the beach and the wind was almost calm here at home, what I found out there was a different world entirely. The wind was howling. I could hardly keep my Westfallia on the road while driving on the bluff that parallels North and South Beach.

When I got there, I gave the west section of the beach a try because it seemed better protected from the wind. It was... but unfortunately the water was full of large pieces of kelp. Impossible to fish. I gave the other side a try and found it to be free of grass but too exposed to the wind. I figured I live too close to the place to put up with all of this so I was out of there and back home in only two hours.

I did, however, find out that my new "Hip Shooter" worked great. I was using 30lb amnesia for a running line and even in the high wind, it stayed in the stripping basket--most of the time. It was also nice to come home without the back of my stripping hand being all banged up as it used to be from hitting the rim on my old hard plastic basket.

One other thing....the profile of the beach has started to return to it's winter pattern. Rocks that were covered only weeks ago are starting to reappear.

Thanks again for the jacket info......Anne

[Mr. Noodle Rod]

Thanks for the update on Sunday's conditions at Drake's, Anne. It'll probably take a couple weeks for the dominant current to return & flush the debris out of the bay. The surf was sloppy at many of the exposed west-facing beaches along the south Marin shoreline this past weekend. I wound up plunking a few flies at Bolinas on Sunday within a couple hours of the high tide & picked up a few small BSP's. The surf was very fishable, unlike Stinson further to the south. The marine forecast for this weekend looks a little better - hopefully the predictions will hold or improve over the next several days.

- Mark