Seaside Park K Street Striper Pursuit and Some Mysteries at Ocean's Edge

Cold front conditions persisted today, although temperatures rose into the 50's. I arrived at Seaside Park K Street at 2:30 to find the surf rough with waves breaking far out, beyond casting reach, as high tide approached. It didn't feel right at all. Within minutes I got the scoop from an elder angler who seemed to have got it from everyone else a half mile down the beach--no fish at all. I fished until 5:19 after sunset, had no hits, nor did anyone else in sight.

Fished an Ava 17 with teaser fairly persistently, but not as hard as I would have if I suspected fish would move in. I set up my bait rod--an 11 foot heavy duty outfit--right at the edge of the bar and the inside sluice. Most of my casting the fish finder rig and five ounce pyramid sinker was short and directly to that deep sluice into which the beach banks sharply. I couldn't cast over the furthest breakers with either bait or the Ava. Had I got five yards further into the surf wading, I still wouldn't have the reach to whip weight over them, and I didn't try--especially avoided where the beach slopes sharply--since my right knee is still very bad and threatened to give out with unstable sand underfoot and jarring heaves of surf wash.

The most fun was snapping about 50 photos. But the contemplative moods I visited along the way for those three hours satisfied the most. I wish I had the time to upload my memories of them and share them with you. I do recall recognizing at one point that even when grand ranges of ideation are present in mind, the reality is subtle, and it's difficult to retain a grasp of what had been thought. This is because such thinking is primarily intuitive and almost subliminal--you're always aware of a great deal that does not quite cross the threshold into consciousness. And that's the beauty of it, not that you are a computer that doesn't function well enough, but that you can become aware in ways a computer can never even approximate--it can only store and organize information--and best of all the mysteries seem to have a life of their own and do not throw themselves upon you. But they are related to you. They will return some other time, and you may become more clear about something in your life than ever before.

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