Steve Moyer Tournament 2007 - report

Hello my NorCal brothers,

Just wanted to post my report of the Steve Moyer Tournament for 2007.

This year my family and I stayed at La Jolla Shores Hotel. We got a great rate for this hotel at $179/nite, reduced from $249/nite thru hotels.com. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, this is basically ground zero for the start of the tourney as it sits right on the beach, next to the kayak drop off turnaround.

Due to business constraints, it looked liked I wouldn't be able to make the Islander trip, but had to get to salt somehow. I used what remaining WAF and turned this tourney into a family vacation. The whole plan couldn't have turned out better. We even stayed an extra day - that's how much we love this place. This makes this our 3rd visit and my 2nd tourney.

I got an early start this year waking up at 4:30am to get my stuff ready. I look out the door and notice that there were already quite a few kayakers out on the beach, ready for the 5:30am start. Wheeled my yak out and lined up for registration where I received a cool T-shirt, a Hobie Bag full of goodies and dropped off my waiver.

It was still dark when we launched into 1 foot waves. Unfortunately, I mistimed my launch and ended up w/ a face full of water and an overturned yak (I've been outta practice). Luckily, La Jolla Shores is known as a gentle waves beach, which made yak retrieval and cockpit reseating easier.

This year, I planned to skip the line at the bait boat and make my way North to the pier. Armed w/ a new bait tube, I was hoping to land some macks to entice some feisty YT. This ended up being the wrong move. Though bait was plenty, they weren't biting MY sabiki. Other's had similiar problems making bait. Finally, at 7:30am, after exhausting my limited arsenal of small baits, i gave up and tied on a x-rap which i decided to troll. It was this bugger that landed me 2 nice macs which I finally pinned on; 1 -hi, 1-lo.

I felt I was in  the game and proceeded to head further North, where last year the winning YT came from. It was then I ran into Larry who was riding a Revolution and was ON big time. Turned out to be the winning 30lbs YT that earned him the choice of kayaks - another Revolution!

Me, well fishing was slow for everyone this day, including myself, with nary a takedown. I did witness the awesome strength that these YT fight.

I called it a day a bit earlier as I still had to round up the family and get ready for the picnic which is always a blast. Bought $20 in raffle tickets a came away w/ a t-shirt and a custom gaff. Got to meet some of the faces on the SoCal board and came away dreaming of moving my family down there in the near future.

For those of you who have yet to make the pilgrimage to this mecca of kayak fishing, I urge you to do so. It's a great beach and launch and there's plenty to do for the family. At nite on the weekends, all the locals come to the beach to campfire and party on the beach and adjacent park - almost like a movie - this place is ideal to raise a family, though costly.

I'll be back again next year.

Oh yea, special thanks to Jim and his family, Matt and his family (and his new lil fishing buddy), the Moyer family and all those who donated their time, gifts and effort to make this another memorable year!

Nice Job Obi-Wan

 Thanks for the Hotel Logistics/Deal stuff ........ Danglin

Nice report. I have always wanted to go down there to hunt some yellowtail.

Elric, glad you enjoyed the trip. I wish it had been fishier for you (and everyone else). This was the quietest Moyer I recall, and look - the top 2 fish were still very nice. In fact, Larry's 31-lber would have won several of the past events. He got that thing on a red-nosed dine too. Who woulda thunk it?