Captain and Crew Memorial Weekend 2006 – part dos

[StocktonDon]

Reported for the late duty Sunday night. Cleanup and organizing for Monday. After-action report for Sunday to be completed and submitted to the log. Crew (aka darn cat) conducting his own night maneuvers that had little to do with naval tradition and all about stalking, pouncing, and apparently eating small night creatures (Captain believes Crew specializes in spiders!)

Sunday’s cover missions include minor office furniture assembly and re-arranging, minor bass boat repairs and new battery installation, and a live-fire type shakedown fishing cruise of the bass boat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Stockton. Captain’s covert mission is reconnaissance for kayak entry points and areas where indigenous re-supply of water-based micropterus and, if that failed, other sunfish-, catfish-, and crawdad-family protein could be accomplished.

As always Crew offered his two-cents but little real help. (Crew: I deploy my finely-tuned whisker and olfactory detection gear, and trained inspection claws, and all I get is Captain’s “get your nose out of there! and “don’t put holes in that!” evaluations. Fortunately crew are trained to ignore the remarks of the less gifted (aka humans) as they go about their duty to keep the base safe from threats undetectable to the humanoids. It’s also a good thing for certain people that they remember to open a can of tuna once in a while!)

Preliminary cover missions accomplished by 1 pm. Boat preparation completed about 2 pm. Launch at the under-Interstate-5 ramp and on the water about 3 pm. Conditions less than optimal for protein recovery efforts: very windy, lots of boat traffic and bank fishermen. Captain notes the positions of bank fishermen give away potential kayak access points.

The mission is timed so that many others will be ending their day on the water about the time Captain and his fellow operative take to the water. Also -.4 low tide is about 4:10 p.m. with an incoming tide going to a 3.2 high. Captain’s initial time on the water allows seeing low water conditions and cover, while the incoming tide is known to stimulate the feeding activity which can optimize the angler’s protein harvest.

After scouting an area of past success and noting changes in cover from the Spring floods, Captain decides cranking a red crawdad pattern Model 7A Bomber should effectively mimic the crawdad forage base active in the 69-70 degree water. Two casts into the operational phase Captain brings a small bass to the boat, giving the traditional “skunk’s out” announcement.

Both Captain and fellow operative each score about 10 bass in the next couple hours, at least half are over 13 inches long and a couple are in the 3 pound category. The presence of many bank fisherman prevented fishing a large portion of the target area, suggesting an even larger harvest would be possible on non-holiday weekdays. Evaluating the data, Captain also concludes a high probability that the same operation conducted in dim-light hours would find larger specimens conducting their business and vulnerable to proper technique.

Off the water by 6 p.m. with mission accomplished. Captain was able to report to the Admiralty the layout of a prime protein-recovery area, with proven bass population and based on lure response, high probability of healthy a crawdad population that can be exploited at need by traps. Further, all navigation hazards created or altered by the spring floodwaters were plotted to allow relatively safe dim-light maneuvers in the future. And finally, many potential kayak access points were spotted and evaluated for human-powered exploitation of the resource.

(Crew no fishing trip can be considered a success without bringing home fish!) Shortsighted spider-eater! The mission was to bring home intelligence, not fish, and mission definitely accomplished! (Crew: not according to a not-so-random survey of my food dish!) Silence greets the coming of night to the base.