Friday August 30 2013 Jenner, CA.
Looks like a good evening to check out the lumens
I stared out the day at the cabin in Boonville where I spent my time until about noon and headed on home where I unloaded my car and took it easy most of the day resting up to go kayaking this evening to check for lumens.
It looked like it would be a good night to check for lumens as it was high tide around seven PM, with no moon and this is a good time of year for heavy plankton, so it should be real good.
I put my boat on the water just after seven PM and headed down toward the river’s mouth to watch the sun set and wait until it got dark.
The water was almost flat, with just a light breeze and almost on the warm side. Just real nice down there.
I took some photos of the sunset as I waited for it to get dark.
This is the sunset as I arrived near the river’s mouth.
Looking out the mouth of the river over the Pacific ocean as the sun starts to set. Birds on the sand.
The sun is really close to being down in this one, looking out over the sandy beach near the river’s mouth.
Really just about gone in this one looking out the river’s mouth into the Pacific ocean, seagulls in the air.
While I was down there, just as the sun disappeared, all the seagulls jumped into the air for a bit.
The sun has set in this one and a star or a planet has popped out, top left of the photo. I continued to sit here until it got a bit on the dark side.
I had to put my camera away after that one as it got too dark to get any photos. It took around another hour for it to start to get dark enough to start hunting for the photo plankton. I’m always a little impatient and start hunting before it’s dark enough.
I started to pick up some light lumens on the north shore of the river in front of the mouth, but it was still fairly light out to see much.
I tried to poke around a bit and wait more for it to get darker, then headed across the river to the south shore and worked my way up toward Penny Island. When it finally got dark enough, I started to see lots of lumens in the water, but no fish.
It was finally getting dark enough to really see the photo plankton, so I worked my way up the back channel of Penny Island looking for lumens and fish. I found lots of lumens all the way up, but almost no fish were out.
I continued on up the south shore of the river past Penny Island. Lots of lumens all the way and I finally ran into quite a few fish about two hundred yards or so above Penny Island on the south side of the river near the shoreline.
The fish population stopped just below Eagle’s landing about a half mile up the river from Jenner. I crossed over the river to Paddy’s rock. Lots of lumens but very few fish, so I headed on down the river on the north side toward Jenner. Lots of lumens and when I got to the area just across from where I saw fish on the other side of the river on the way up,I started to pick up lots of fish along the shore line there too. There were quite a few fish until I got about a quarter mile above the visitor’s center, where they stopped for some reason, but there were still lots of lumens to see.
I was back at the take out at the visitors center at ten PM, where I took my boat out and went on home.
So, it was a fairly good night to view the photo plankton, but not very good to see a bunch of fish. I’m still working on why there are fish sometimes and not at other times. There seems to be more fish up the river just a bit than there is around Penny Island and the river’s mouth area. Why? Something to study and figure out.
Had a nice day and a nice evening too.