Fished with Kris at two of our on shore Waxwing testing grounds. The tide was at a good height and we could see a lot of bait in the water at the first sandy/muddy beach we fished.  Kris caught 3 small white papio on the Waxwing Baby and 5 on the bubble and grub. I couldn’t buy a solid bite.  The most action I got were some follows and weak bumps on my Waxwing Baby.  When your fishing partner is having an outstanding day and you can’t even hook a single fish, it messes with your confidence!  I asked Kris how he was retrieving and he said he was retrieving slower because the water was so murky.  Even with that valuable info I couldn’t adjust my retrieve to entice the fish.

We moved on to another sandy/muddy beach that could handle a higher tide and the water level looked perfect as well.  With a slightly slower speed I got some boils and hooked a very small kaku.  Man did it feel good to land that fish.  I think Kris purposely introduced wind knots in his spinning reel to give me time to catch a few fish and get my confidence back.  I had a few more boils and chases, and hooked another kaku but overall the action was slow.

Was it just an off day for me? I’m now thinking that the fish were lackadaisical due to the large moon messing with their feeding pattern.  White papio and kaku can easily locate prey under a bright moon, so maybe they were just full?  Kris’ slower retrieve and use of a small curl tail grub provided an easier meal for the fish.  I hadn’t fished the first testing ground with my high speed Curado 300EJ before, and I probably didn’t slow down enough to present the Waxwing properly.

The conditions and result made for a very valuable fishing log entry.