With the surf/weather forecast continuing the call for cruddy weather, huge surf and big tidal swings, it didn’t look like I was going to get any time to “flip bugs at sea level” this weekend. Check out the surf forecast for today:

Instead of fishing, I took a few hours to look through some of my photos from earlier in the year and found a few that I made of my buddy John surfing in a contest in Imperial Beach back in October. It is fun to look back on things and to step outside of the box for me. For this outing, I broke out my longest lens (currently a Canon 70-300mm 5.6) and shot away from the Imperial Beach Pier. Compared to the “professionals” toting the 600mm lenses and monopods, this was nothing, but using the pier to get closer to the action seemed to work.

The end of 2009 came and went pretty quickly here, with most of my family suffering from the latest cold. We are just now starting to get back to normal. 2009 brought me a lot of success. I was extremely fortunate to have several articles published throughout the year, the opportunity to guide some new friends in the surf and land my first cover photo on the November/December issue of Southwest Flyfishing (see previous post). As I look back on the variety of fishing/traveling that I got to do this year, a few photos that were not published reminded me of good times and I wanted to share some of them with you.

Mornings in San Diego Bay can be beautiful.

Solis practicing perch tossing.

Jon casting the Bamboozler at the One Fly.

Golden Trout Wilderness on Labor Day

Marc stalking California Gold in Horseshoe Meadows

Marc headed out on a cold lake.

Nymphing on the East Walker

Perfect light for chasing Corbina

Solis working the wash for sight fished Corbina.

First Bean of the season.

Bahia La Ventana September 2009

My neighborhood lake is full of these grumpy gills.

Sometimes those photo ops don't always work out.

San Diego Bay Spottie December 2009

Solis casting for the green flash

Thanks for looking. I can only hope to be as fortunate in 2010. The calendar is already starting to fill and I can’t wait to fish and spend time with some good friends. I hope your year is shaping up to be a fun one as well and look forward to seeing you on the water.