Marin Islands 9/30/07

SteveS and I went to check out the reported striper bite around the Marin Islands in San Rafael.  Steve went out for a little bit Saturday PM and managed to catch one or two dinks.  On his way back, he saw a guy at the Loch Lomond Marina with two very nice 30" stripers caught off the Islands using a chartreuse hair raiser.

So we decided to try our luck Sunday AM.  We got there early and since I was cheap, we decided to launch at the east side of the marina to avoid the $5 each launch fee.  The parking turned out to be closer and launch was just as easy.  We paddled out and trolled around the islands and saw lots of bait popping the surface and we metered fish.  Unfortunately, all we caught were a few dink stripers.

I got my excitement for the day when a I hooked into something big on the hair raiser.  It started zinging the drag on my spinning reel making me think this might be the biggest striper I ever hooked.  I fought it for a long while.  At times, it fought like a striper, but then it started to hug the bottom like a bat ray which made me start having doubts it was a striper.  Then finally, I got it to come up and saw it was leopard hooked in the pectoral fin.  I carefully tired it out and got it close enough to the yak to grab its tail.  Dam those things are strong -- pure muscle.  I got Steve to take a pic and I released the shark unharmed.

We were off the water by around 10 AM to enjoy the rest of the nice day and get stuff done.

Nice leopard ChuckE

WTG Chasing these Stripers....Uh Strippers ...

 I heard they are just moving around the North Bay and ya just got to be there...

 Nice loepord.... Hair Raiser????

  That's a new one!!!!! ,........ Danglin

Hey Chuck~

That is a BEAUTY of a pic. WTG!

Awesome  !  Great pic.

ChuckE - Nice lepo! Did you launch on the east side, inside the harbor?( It looks like a good spot at the end of the parking lot although I only saw it at high tide.) Or, did you launch down the road at the end of the rock wall going twords McNears?  Tom

Chucke,
I hear ya on the leapord's power. I lipped one about a foot bigger than that at Tomales last week and it started twisting and leaveraging against the hull of my yak. It was like an arm wrestling match. The are hard as a bar of soap!!! First time it pulled right off my lipper. Even the lings haven't done that!! Looks like a perfect day out there.

Nice Pic Chuck I think it was too nice to catch fish yesterday, you didn't get what you wanted but were rewarded with great conditions.

Sweet leopard  Sweet pic.

I'm looking forward to catching my first yak shark.

FF

NICE,NICE, Baby!  that must have got the ol'juices flowin!  Great pic and I hope to get some of those BIG Girly-Leopards around the house soon!
thnks fer da port!

was too bad on the striper front...two dinks around the islands-- then the long paddle to the canal. Where i have to say, a little striper made Chuck a believer in that little honey hole! Too bad that was all she wrote

Me: "they like those little baby x-raps. We should be in the zone just where that little canal comes in"
Disbelieving Chuck: "oh ok"
Me: "fish on"
Believing Chuck: "it happened right where you said!"

Just an FYI - "they" are nailing stripers right now at Black Point on bait.

Also - that's a male leopard. 

Also - that's a male leopard. 

i think that's why he's waiting for the big females!

ChuckE - Nice lepo! Did you launch on the east side, inside the harbor?( It looks like a good spot at the end of the parking lot although I only saw it at high tide.) Or, did you launch down the road at the end of the rock wall going twords McNears?  Tom

Hey Tom.  We launched on the east side, inside the harbor.  That launch at the end of the rock wall is our favorite launch for the Brickyard flats.

I almost forgot how much fun shark fishing can be.

NCKA was planning to do another fun shark derby for the 2007 Bay Area Paddlefest, but that got cancelled.  Then Bill, Chris, and I started planning to do our own NCKA Shark Derby for the first weekend in October, but BAM2 was revived and took that date.

Perhaps, we should see if there's enough interest in doing a shark derby in the next few months or the January.... but that starts running into sturgeon season. 

We need a SHARK SEASON, whenever they're in!  forget that sturgeon season, those things don't bite or fight like a BIG LEOPARD does!    Ed(sudmucker), my co-worker, was getting them(a few a day)almost every trip he made.Using those cross-bred bullhead/mudsucker things we trap here (pinole/hercules/N.Bay) in the creeks that feed the bay.......count me in on that BLAST!