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I have first hand seen the impact one fishing report has on a bite. Last winter, a few members of Lollipop and I had two weeks worth of a steady bite all to ourselves. Not a single boater/kayaker out there. One morning a brave young new guy found us on the beach and we let him tag a long. We put him on a few nice fish which were on the internet 5 hours later.
For the next month, you could walk from vessel to vessel in La Jolla. Fish were just haphazardly gaffed and tossed over the rails. I saw the same anglers day after day slaughtering more fish than could fit in a single freezer.
It's not about competition. Whether there is one kayak or one hundred, those who catch fish will continue to catch fish. It's about preservation of an ecosystem. Nothing will destroy La Jolla faster than the internet. People worry about Japanese radiation impacting our fish? People should worry more about Fishdope.
Do you ever watch the offshore numbers? 1000s of fish killed everyday, more than anyone really needs out of one trip.
Since then, I have become strictly CnR on all La Jolla and offshore Yellowtail with the exclusion of the ones I shoot. I also will not take more than 4 WSB a year.
I have no problem posting stories and pictures to get people motivated. But they will never be timely reports. A lot of work goes into finding bites. Why should a forum watcher who only fishes when a wide open bite hits the forums benefit from our hard work? You can't even grasp the amount of hours and milage that Dannowar, Daemon and I put on our peddles over the summer fishing Crystal Pier working the area, finding the patterns, and finally making a big score. Over eighty hours a week for the months of June and July. La Jolla was getting crowded, fish we getting pressured and we wanted to try something new. Nine miles round trip 5 days a week, from 3pm-2am working the same grounds. Dedication and preservierance got us those fish, not a hot tip off the internet.
This isn't to say we are greedy, self contained assholes. We share this info with plenty of people via text, pm and phone calls. They are the people that have shown they work hard in their own right and share accordingly in return. Call us a clique, call us a gang, call us assholes if you will, but if you ever see us on the water you can bet your ass we will show every new guy how to make bait, tie some knots, give some tackle and we've even been known to pass a rod off while bendo. Robfish gaffed todd ones first Sheepshead and never met the guy, Gregandrew gave me a sabiki my first day in LJ, Steveo put me on my first WSB, I got Stinkymatt his PB YT...the list goes on. Point being, the real community is out on their kayaks, not on their keyboards.
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