[WinblowsME]

Have you ever wondered how your life would be different if you had done something differently in the past? Well, tonight was one of those nights for me.

For the past week, I was planning on joining the Mud Marlin Derby. I even requested Saturday off from work so that I can join the contest. My plan was to get to the pier early, sign up and fish near the end of the pier. For whatever reason, I decided to show up to work instead. Since work was slow, I requested to leave early to go fishing.

I arrived at the pier at around 8-ish and headed towards the end of the pier (I usually like fishing towards the front). To my amazement, the pier was packed. I've never seen so many people fishing at night. I have been getting skunked at Berkeley for the past week and a half, and since one of the rules of the derby is that only one pole is allowed, I decided not to join the contest and opted to try and catch my first Striped Bass/Halibut keeper of the year using two rods.

I started fishing around the middle of the pier. On top of the crabs stealing my bait, I didn't want to anger any nearby anglers with my cast net that makes the water sound as if someone had just fell in. So, I decided to pack up and hurry my way back closer to the front of the pier. I got back to my favorite fishing light and noticed someone else had occupied it, so I went to the next light instead. On my first throw of the cast net, I netted a bunch of anchovies and two shiners. Up to that point, I had never caught anything using shiners as bait, even though a lot of anglers say they're awesome as bait. I hooked up the bigger shiner, tossed my line in the water and LITERALLY less than a minute later, I got a big hit. The funny thing was, the shiner that I hooked up looked like it was pregnant, and I was very close to letting the fish go free. It's very hard to fish with a conscience. I set the hook and my line was going all over the place. I knew what I hooked up wasn't a bat ray, but it felt like a small one weight-wise. I knew it wasn't a shark because the line was swirling around too fast. My hunch was it was a Striper, and it was, a 26-incher, my biggest Striper to this day and my first keeper of the year.

Looking back, had I joined the Mud Marlin Derby, or if I had not hurried back to the front, or if my favorite light wasn't taken, or if I had let the shiner go, I probably wouldn't have landed this fish. It must've been fate.

[Salty Nick v2]

Congrats on your first legal and PB striper!

Salty.

[IRPescador]

Congrats man!
Good job on adapting to the circumstances...it clearly payed off

[seabass_seeker]

I know what you mean, if you hadn't done just one of those things you may not have caught that fish. But what if you were fated to catch a striper that day regardless? Like no matter what you did, you would have caught a striper because it was fate o_0

[red fish]

Fate has a funny way of playing out sometimes. WTG-on the fish. You could have joined the group as there were really very few people half way between the last sink and the end. Couldn't have picked a nicer day to fish this past week than Saturday as far as good, warm weather in the evening. And, you could have used a second rod for striper/halibut as we only allow one rod for the derby (but you can have an additional rod in the water for striper/halibut fishing).

[WinblowsME]

Thanks, I'll be sure to join the Derby next year. I heard someone caught a 4-foot Guitarfish at the end late night.