Hi Keith,

Still in Westport? I've been here about three years now, sorry I missed this I haven't been around the board much lately. I do live in Westport and am looking to get out more.

Jeff

My PMAX20 powers up but has no screen anymore and I am looking for a replacement, doesn't have to be a 20 but my kayak is already rigged for it so a 20 or something else that will use the same setup(mounting, power and dual beam transducer) would be great.

Thanks,

Jeff

Hi,

I used to post as freediverca here... never had a chance to meet up with anyone. Quick story got married, had a son and quit my previous career to move to Westport,CA in Mendocino County to start a small scale family farm, based on Permaculture principles.

We are in the process of getting the farm up and running with plenty to do as you might imagine. Currently we have a lot of young fowl around and are building up our infrastructure gearing up for next year.

Haven't done much fishing, kayaking or diving (free-diving or SCUBA) recently so it seemed a name change was in order. On other forums I have used justhavinfun and so it seems appropriate here as well.  My wife has always been my partner for everything but now with a two year old, it just is not possible. She is the wonderful and understanding type though......

So I am also looking for fishing/dive partners or general hookups in the area. So far none of the major events work out yet but I will make one soon. Since I have no formal job currently I can be available most days of the week for fishing or freediving with or without kayak given a few days notice in advance, sometimes I can drop everything too but it really depends on where we are on any given day. As stated above getting a farm up and running out on the edge of the wild is obviously time consuming but the call of the ocean is strong.
I am 40,  SCUBA certified and have been freediving for a lot of years though neither recently. I have kayaked rivers, lakes as well as the ocean though also not recently. I have just about all of the gear I need for kayaking/fishing/freediving and maybe even some to lend. I want to get into kayak crabbing also. At 40 with a wife, child and a farm to get up and running I am not a big risk taker anymore....but I am still up for anything reasonable.

Jeff

Was out on Big Break for a little while this afternoon. Pretty windy out there today. Few weeds right now but still dirty because of the lack of weeds. Got one dink striper trolling a small shallow running rainbow trout pattern (don't know what this bait is called or where I even got it) near the tules and a pretty cheap looking duck decoy that must have broke free awhile back.

Dead batteries today on the camera.

Jeff

Slammer,

I too have thought about targeting the smallies on occasion if nothing else because here in the delta at least they are not really targeted much and they sound like a better fight than LMB. Some people will even tell you there are no smallies in the delta.

Granted in a lot of the lakes they are found they are fished more heavily. I am looking for smallies specifically in the delta though, so all the information below that I have come across(not much) is directly related to delta smallies. Some of this information may cross over to lakes as well I just do not know.

Found more in the Sacramento river than the San Joaquin river if I understand correctly because the water is generally colder.

Word around town says good areas on the San Joaquin start near Stockton and go east and south. Never fished for smallies or fished on the delta out by Stockton so I don't know much more that that.

On the Sacramento you have to really do your research because some sloughs are always colder than the rest of the river system. These tend to be the sloughs where the smallies hang out. I hear from a good source that smallies can be taken out near The Meadows - don't know more. I'd look for deeper colder water with rock structure. Also I have personally seen one smallie on a stringer while fishing at Steamboat slough as well. I want to say I saw a fishing map online with more areas marked - maybe at Fish Sniffer they have a lot of maps online.

Besides that most other info about lake smallies applies - just remember if fishing the delta to apply the lake info to the delta. Example a lot of people will say fish deep in the summer etc. in a lake. Well in the delta your deepest water tends to be dredged areas, which means mud ~ not really smallie structure. However the deeper in a lake comment usually is because of water temp in the lake. So instead of finding the deepest water on the delta find the coldest with the right structure etc.

Jeff

Just before spring comes I will usually pull ours out and run my hands down them. If the surface is really scored or pitted I'll run some 250 grit or higher sand paper over the bad spots. It really depends on the bad spots, sometime 250 then 500 grit, sometimes just 1000 grit. Obviously since I am removing some material the less is more approach is applied here. Mostly I am trying to take out any major high spots, scratches, etc that jump right out and try to keep the bottom relatively smooth. About the same time I will give both kayaks a good once over with the 303 protectant, I only do it once a year because it does make the kayaks harder to handle for a couple weeks, I can image teflon would be much worse.

I have heard about the heat gun polishing method but I am not trying it until I have had some experience with plastic welding first just to get a feel. Fortunately I have not had a reason to learn to plastic weld yet so this works for me.

Jeff

http://www.oaklandallcraft.com/

Only kayaking accessories and I am not sure what all they have in stock but this is where I purchased my Cobra Tourers a couple years ago. The people were super friendly but you might call first. On a side note they are or at the time were one of the only Cobra dealers around.

Steele's Discount Scuba - you will have to look them up as I do not think they have a website. I have been to the one in Berkeley in the past not sure they are still even there. But if memory serves there should be one in Oakland and maybe SF also.

Jeff