With surf in the "minuscule" range and water temps rapidly declining I decided it was time to get some more "fly time" in on my board before the Winter swells hit. Plus, weather conditions couldn't

have been nicer this past week with sheet glass conditions, warm air and water in the mid-60's. On top of all that Conway actually had a day off and decided to rally early with our friend Calvin and me for the fishing excursion.

We hit the beach in Encinitas at 6:20am... still dark but glassy. We had an easy paddle out... straight to my hot spot in the kelp... Cal and I on stand-up paddle boards and Conway on his longboard. Cal and Conway rigged with conventional gear... I with my fly rod.

A beautiful morning for some casting on my stand-up board...

My first hit landed this fish taco sized mini-plaid... skunk off!

There was a ton of bait around... about half an acre of good sized mackerel milling around. Conway and Cal were further outside the kelp... I was hanging onto the edge trying to pick off another plaid or whatever else might be cruising the line up. And then the mayhem started. All of a sudden... a few bait start popping on the surface... then some more... here and there... then some more. I see the direction the bait are heading... about 30' from me and across my bow. I see some nervous water about to erupt. I throw my fly into the center of the boil. As my fly is in the air bait comes flying out of the water... my fly lands just past the boil... I strip my line and BAM... my line comes tight and awaaaaaaaaaay we go!

My line is cruising out between my fingers... with about 20' of slack coiled at my feet. The slack is quickly zipping through the guides of my rod as the fish on the other end takes off! Within seconds the slack is gone and I'm fighting the fish on my reel and it's giving me some serious head shakes... I reel a few cranks and get some line on it... it take twice as much... I reel some more... it takes more. I'm hooting to the guys to head over and check it out. They make it over just as I land the bugger... my first bonito on the fly!!!!!

It weighs out at 5.5lbs... and what a gorgeous fish!!!!

Meanwhile the crashing bait has subsided and everyone goes about their business. About 15 minutes later... the boiling begins again. There's so much bait boiling I couldn't figure out where to cast first! I’m hollering at Cal and Conway to get over where I am because there's a ton of bait boiling... they're hollering back at me that I should cruise over by them because bait's going nuts over there too! Unfortunately I didn't hook up this time but Conway hooked this beautiful 5.5lber on a surface Rapala!

Cal scored a bonie too but he was too far away for the photo op.

Anyway, unfortunately we had to leave bait crashing as I was already 45 minutes late for work. I headed out again yesterday but the water dropped 3-4 degrees in the kelp and there was hardly anything stirring out there. Guess we caught the window right before it slammed shut! What a freakin' blast! Hopefully we'll go fly fishing together again soon and board more bonito! All fish released... to be caught another day!