Loaded up and thought I'd hit the old pier for any Cobes that might have lingered there overnight. Got to the top of the dune right at Nautical twilight after hearing the surf INSIDE THE TRUCK at the parking lot... gulp... Then as I was loading a dude on trash duty and I were talking and he said, "yep the surf really come up from yesterday afternoon." ... gulp... so I sat at the top and looked down at a pounding surf that almost pure swells - not much wind chop on top at all.
Took abou 10 mins to get myself talked into going heading into the beast but went down to the edge. Swells were comming SSE and stacked about 50- 60 secs apart for the BIG ones. Got her in about 100 yards West of the pier where there was bit of a rip going out (only made the curls higher!)
Launched into it and my two pieces of advice are
1. DO NOT STOP
2. PADDLE LIKE YOU STOLE IT
Had all scuppers ut and rigged for if I got rolled first wave rolls in and it's 10" high white water - KEEP STROKING DEEP PULLING HARD couple yards second wave I'm in a 75F bathtub.. no a whirlpool - now the yak is heavy, sloppy hard to steer - waves starting to build back up to Doom Size. KEEP GOING you will not be able to turn around between waves. Got two more way over the bow but my butt was planted into the plastic and not coming out. My pinfish were having a blast I on the other hand was wondering WTFO but really having a good time... Got past the breakers, let my heart and stomach catch up with the rest of me and broke out the poles from where I lashed them. Trolled a pinfish around had two pulled off and two cut offs. No hook-ups. While there I saw four or five other yaks try adn make it out with about a 60% success rate. Gottafish got SMASHED and tore up - his report is at
https://www.gulfcoastkayakfishing.co...;replyto=15368 a couple other guys got dumped adn stayed on the beach - a few intrepid (rhymes with STUPID) souls got out to meet no fish and almost no bites. So here's the vid - the buoy off PC reported 4-5" swells I sit about 3' up in my Yak and you can see I'm in a big hole.
Oh ya getting in usually the hardest part but the God's smiled on me and let me pass between a coupel HUGE sets. Jumped out about 50' out and 5' deep and tailed her in through the slop.
<EMBED src=http://www.youtube.com/v/EO5Lnlc_e7E&hl=en&fs=1 width=425 height=344 type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always">
:doh
Stressless</EMBED>