This past Tuesday, I had time on my hands, so I ran down into town to post my unemployment forms. Maybe something will come out of it, even a little bit would be of immense help. After I did this, I stopped to get gas at Rotten Robbie’s on Mission. As I was in my truck cleaning out trash, a whole flotilla of Highway Patrol and Sheriff’s Office vehicles screamed by. The police went streaming back in the other direction a couple minutes later, followed by a fire engine. It was utter bedlam! 

I went to pay for my gas and the attendant was tripping out. I’m like, “Man, there must be a pursuit going on or something!” To which he responded, “Yeah man, they were chasing a Prius of all things! It was doing at least 65!” (The speed limit on Mission is like 25.) We had a laugh about the unlikely choice of vehicle to evade the police in. We also agreed that the world was truly losing its collective mind.

After this, I drove up to Scott’s Creek close to the bottom of the mountain where I am staying. Highway 1 on the way up was just jammed with people at every beach. It was on a Tuesday, looking like holiday crowds! I guess since everyone is unemployed, there’s nothing better to do. There was also a lot of cops all up and down the road, lights flashing. I figured it had something to do with whatever had gone on earlier.

Arriving at my destination, I was wanting to check out the beach’s fishability, and to see if there were any good-sized sandcrabs in abundance. Sandcrabs are excellent bait for surf perch, and in particular, striped bass. Surf perch are really tasty, but the meat is really mushy. It’s like the saltwater equivalent to a bluegill or sunfish. Striped bass are much more desirable, but in the many times I have fished for them, I’ve yet to catch one. I’ve always casted lures, which are effective if you happen to get lucky and find a school.

Most of the time when I have seen fishermen at the beach with huge stripers in hand, they always caught them the same way. They were caught using sandcrabs with fixed poles on sandspikes. I don’t like hauling a lot of gear around with me when I go to the beach, so I’ve been stubborn and never went that route. I just recently decided to get a sandspike and switch things up however. It only works if you find big enough sandcrabs that they’ll munch on though.

I got all rigged up and headed down to the water to see what I could see. The first thing I checked was the sandcrab situation. There were lots of them there, but they were all really tiny, about the size of an English Pea. Quarter size is good for perch, and a half dollar for stripers. Maybe in a month they’ll have grown and it’ll be prime time here, but not now for sure. The winds were blowing pretty strongly and the surf was raging as I made a few casts. Each time I did so, I got gunked up with kelp and other marine plant debris. It was apparent that this beach doesn’t look too promising for what I want to do, at least for the time being. I’ll have to hit it again at a future time.

The next day the first thing I did was check the news on what went down the day before involving so many police. It turns out some guy had been up right around where I had fished the day before, and had fired shots into the air. He got reported, and as the cops closed in, he carjacked someone and fled! Right after I saw the pursuit, the cops gave up the chase as it was in a crowded urban area to keep people from getting hurt. The bozo then went down to West Cliff Drive and just drove off a cliff into the ocean! It was probably a 50 foot plunge into the sea. Somehow the guy survived, and is now in a whole heap of trouble, I bet.

People are just cracking up left and right around here lately! We also just had that case of some ex-military guy looking to start the boogaloo ambush and kill a Sheriff’s deputy over in Ben Lomond a couple of weeks ago. He had a whole bunch of pipe bombs and was heavily armed to boot. The crazies are starting to swarm like mosquitoes. I guess the world ain’t ending fast enough for these kind of people.

Anyways, later on in the day, me and the boys went down to help out a neighbor that was moving out of her place. I got a chance to meet some neighbors I hadn’t met yet, and we hauled a shed and a couple of non-functional SUV’s up the hill to her new spot. When we were done, she brought out all kinds of food and we had a nice little BBQ. It was really nice and relaxed, with dogs, kittens, and chickens hanging out with us as we all socialized. It’s such a nice pace of life up here, when someone needs help, all the neighbors pitch in to get things done. It’s like it was in the old days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a community like this in this part of California. I’ve never been in another place like it in the Santa Cruz area.

The past couple of days I’ve just been chillin’. I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s WordPress blogs to see what is going on out there in the blog-o-sphere. It’s been good to see how other writers express themselves and to maybe give me ideas how I can express myself better. I realized how important it is to have good tags on your posts, for instance. I’ve always enjoyed reading people’s blogs, but now that I’m writing one, seeing how everyone else approaches their topics is helping me to refine my own vision here on Tales of the Dogfish. It’s nice.

I found out today I may have some work coming in from my previous employer so that’s some real good news! I had thought I was out of that scene, it would be great to get back on board that train. I’m right at the edge of destruction financially, so that was reassuring news to hear. Another thing that is cool is that tomorrow, me and the boys are going back out to sea for another go at some salmon. We were short on salmon rigs, but between Jacob and I, we had the pieces to make our own. This is a skill I’ve been wanting to master for a while, so I just sat down and practiced until I got it right. Now that I know how to tie them, it’s going to be a big savings. They are going for 13 dollars apiece if you buy them at the bait shop, but if you make your own, the cost is only 4 bucks! Definitely the way to go!

We’re feeling good about tomorrow, the conditions look good out on the Bay for a day of fishing. I’ll see if I really did a proper job of tying those snells, if I didn’t, my boys might make me walk the plank! All right, Happy 4th of July everyone. I hope ya’ll can all celebrate the best way ya’ll can, given the current circumstances.