San Simeon extended weekend....

[Fiskadoro]

Since this is not much of a fish report, and a surf report at best I figured I'd put it here.

Short version: Went up north and camped and surf fished three days for nothing. Great place to camp and fish, but slow for me.Only saw one fish, a small great white in the side of a breaker in front of the bridge at San Simean creek but that was it..Small thing maybe eight feet, nothing to worry about. It was cold windy and rough, but some times you have to take a jump and see where you land and ultimately for me the trip turned out to be much more of a trip and more fun than I would of expected.

Long version:

I went up the coast for some camping and surf fishing with a female friend Uma and her daughter Anais.



Uma is not much of a camper but she knows I'm into the outdoors and since her Daughter Anais recently went camping with a group from her school and loved it, she thought it would be a good thing for us to try out together.

We'd been thinking about a trip before the end of summer, and I have always wanted to check out the coast up around Cambria after looking at all the options, including hotels etc.. we decided to head up for a three day weekend at the San Simeon Creek Campgrounds.

I'll be honest. I've never married and have no kids, so the idea of hanging with two girls for three days one of which is only five and a half had me a little nervous, but I decided to make the best of it.

Naturally I would of preferred to take a kayak (I had several friends that were going to be up there kayaking) but since my kayak gear would of taken up half the car I decided on limiting myself to just surf fishing, taking my ten foot Kencor spinning outfit spooled with 20 spectra with a twelve foot Fluoro 12lbs topshot, as swimbait rig and my trusty surf proven Fenwick pack rod as the four pound light outfit.

As to camping gear ...well my idea of camping is with minimal gear, lots of fishing and sleeping in the bed of my truck. I knew that was not going to work, with the girls so I turned to Gary "Bubblehide" whose got more gear then sportmart for better options. He set me up with a beautiful 10x17 tent, two queen size air mattresses, sleeping bags, some led lanterns, chairs etc.... For cooking I brought my old trusty rusty Coleman fuel stove, and also dug up my little Coleman fuel single burner lantern for outside light at night.

So the majority of the gear was Garry's Let's just say I owe Garry a huge favor.

Add to that the gear the girls brought and we had the BMW pretty well loaded. Just room for us in the kid....LOL

The plan was that I would head over to Uma's Friday night stay the night then we'd leave before light on Saturday morning, but at ten Friday I was still sorting out gear with Gary, so I got to Uma's at 6:00 am the next morning. The girls were still asleep so we didn't get on the road until about eight.

Uma and I have been dating for a while, but all told I had only spent maybe ten minutes with her daughter before the trip. It's a four and a half hour drive to San Simeon and within thirty minutes Anais was restless and asking if we were "there yet". I'm like Ohhh my!!! This is going to be trouble!!!

After a while though she settled down and fell asleep. We got to the site at maybe 12:30 and it was already pretty full. Got a nice spot though: space 035 with a great view of the ocean.

I started assembling the tent and the girls made lunch, pretty soon I noticed Anais digging down through the gear in the SUV. I went over to help her and asked what she wanted, and she said: "I want to hold the fishing pole!" Well that 's my kind of girl. We decided the big surf rod was too much for her to play with so I told here when I finished with the tent and we ate I'd break out a rod just her size.

Here she is maybe an hour later with my Fenwick pack rod.

I have fished that rod for maybe thirty five years, but according to Uma it's the first real rod she's ever had in her hands.

Anais wanted to go fishing right away but since the reel had no line on it and it was already late in the day, I told her we'd go fish the next morning. We did take a walk down to the beach and check it out.

For those that have not been up there it's a very beautiful place, unfortunately though for us it was very rough, blown out with high winds, and eight foot surf, on Saturday afternoon. It was also cold.

Felt more like we were at cape cod in the fall then California in the summer. I had the big rod with me and made some casts with big hammers but it was nothing doing in the high surf. We stuck it out for a while until the girls got cold then headed back to the campsite.

I decided to make some coffee to worm the adults up, rigged up my stove lit it, and when I cycled the needle valve to clean it the needle valve adjustment mechanism broke leaving the needle jammed into the jet which stopped up the fuel flow. I've had that stove since I was 16, what a time to fail. I took it apart and the cam that moved the needle in and out had snapped at the shaft inside and there was no way to get to it.

So cold pasta and no coffee for dinner. By now it was getting late and colder by the minute. I realized I really needed to get some wood.

I had seen a few trucks down the road with kayaks on them that I knew by sight and there was also another set of yaks two sites over. I noticed they had huge pile of wood, so I walked over to find Ryan Howell and AnacapaBob two kayakers I know, hanging with a bunch of their friends by a nice well equipped camper.

We shot the ****,got the info on the wood and then went down and purchased some (great deal at 10 bucks a wheelbarrow)

Got back to camp, built a fire. I then went to fire up the lantern and the seal for the nob shaft had dried out and it was unusable, as it leaked like a sieve. Colder then expected, no stove, no lantern, this was really starting to look bad. Fortunately we had batteries for Garry's LED lanterns so the kind of saved the day light wise, and it's hard to complain sitting next to a warm fire.

Some neighbors came by and offered Anais some cookies,then handed her a couple for Mom and Dad... LOL

Uma and I broke open a bottle of good red wine, and we cooked some sausages on some skewers I made over the fire, and then had marshmellows with Anais. The wind calmed down a bit so things started looking up, and by the time we went to bed we were in a pretty good mood.

Anais woke early maybe 5:00am and promptly informed is that she had to go to the bathroom. Uma was still half asleep so I volunteered to take her. A grown man of my age with a five year old girl at a public restroom is going to come across one of two ways. Either fatherly or very creepy, as I waited outside I decided on fatherly, and actually felt pretty good about it.

It's funny how easy it is to care about kids, it just brings out the protection instinct. After the bathroom ritual, and the ritual washing of the hands, we decided to start a fire (it was cold as a b!!@#) and Anais helped me with the wood.



She is such a Cutie...



I got a coffee pot going on the fire, then broke out the lantern and greased the shaft with some reel lube I had which sealed it just fine. Then I broke out the stove and completely disassembled it. there was not way to get to the cam. I considered just breaking the needle valve out of the housing but I figured that would create too much flow. Finally I took a 3/4 Kalins jig head and used the hook as a reaming tool to enlarge the jet. I knew it would ruin the jet permanently but they are cheap and easy to change and I just wanted it to work for the trip. Did the trick, it had one setting "high" but it ran like a cummins on turbo, and it was better then nothing.

Woke Uma, made some breakfast with the repaired stove (eggs with peppers and onions) and had it with bad campfire coffee.... worked for me. Anais started talking about fishing, and I showed her how to reel and then she spooled my ultra lite spinning reel with four pound while I held the line spool, coached her, and took a picture.


I'll be honest I was blown away. I've had that little Shakespeare 030 spinning reel for years: the anti reverse no longer works on it, and it's set up left handed, so it's not the easiest reel to use. She spooled like a pro, no tangles, no mistakes, no mess, she didn't get bored, etc.. Very impressive!

After that we decided to just go down and go fishing. Uma wasn't ready so I took Anais down to the beach myself. We took both my rods, and initially she just followed me around holding the rod I was not using as I fished. I'd take a cast then walk up the sand and tell Anais what I was doing. Not that it did much good on my end. Not a bite.

After while her mother came down and laid out on what passes for sand at San Simean. We went over to hang out with her, and snapped a few pics.



By now Anais and I were quickly becoming best friends...



...and she is talking nonstop about fishing. So I'm thinking I need to really teach her how to land a fish. I tied on a brown motor oil grub then hooked it to a stick that was lying on the beach hooked it solid with the grub handed the rod to Alais and showed her how to open the bail and let the line out.

I then walked maybe a hundred feet away and dropped the stick and told her to reel it in.




After about thirty minutes of that, I decided she was ready to graduate to the surf.


Basically I'd cast a grub for her then she would reel it in, and with the high surf and all the kelp in the water 9 times out of 10 she'd hook a "pretend" fish as she called them (Kelp or weeds) Then she would fight that junk to the beach. In the high surf that stuff would put up quite a fight taking line, when the waves washed out.

I've never seen a kid so patient, or who picked it up so fast. Within minutes she completely got the concept of the drag. When the stuff washed down the beach she'd point the rod at it and just let it take line, then she'd lift the rod high and reel as fast as she could when the surf pushed the kelp towards the beach.

At one point she hooked a ten foot stringer, and then fought it for good while, reeling as the waves pushed it in then letting it run out drag on the back current. It took her a good twenty or thirty minutes but she finally got it on the beach, which was quite a feat on four pound.


In the pic above she's on that stringer patiently watching the spool as it rips out line in an undertow.

Here's her expression after thirty minutes when she actually got that piece of kelp on the sand.


She kept at it even after the wind came up and it got cold.



We fished together like this for maybe six hours that day, four at San Simeon creek, and another two hours later in the day above the pier. She never lost interest, did not once tangle, or break the line even on big chunks of kelp, in heavy surf with four pound test.

I've been fishing 45 years and I have never seen anything like it.

Very impressive for a five year old kid, I'm totally confident that she could land any perch Corbina that she'd hook now, or even a large leopard if she hooked one.

That night we had a much better time at the camp site. Made a good dinner on the now working stove, lit the the now working lantern, ate marshmallows at the campfire, and Uma and I split a good bottle of Prosecco.



Just a real nice night to be out camping.

Next morning broke warm and clear, we broke camp and loaded the truck and headed down to Morro Bay. Much warmer down there maybe 80 degrees, fished all morning with Anais, Grubs, Gulp sandworms, tried some snadcrabs and just could not get bit. Anais was a real pro until a snd crab crawled across here feet and scared her. After that she didn't want to stop fishing but she wanted me to carry her when she was reeling so her feet would be out of the water... LOL

So as the fishing went... well... well let's just say you guys sure didn't miss anything in the surf...three days numerous beaches for zip. Not even a bite and I threw everything at them. 2" Big hammers, motor oil grubs, gulp sandworms, sandcrabs.... for nothing.

My Yakker friends just killed the big Reds off the kelp but though it was very slow and rough inside on the sand, I got a feeling I had just as much fun playing around inside.

Good time had by all can't wait to do it again.

Jim