CALIFORNIA CARRY ON FISHING GEAR

The teeny tiny picture of the rod above is the best I could get it from a google image, but the company that sells this rod, the Balzer 120 Travel Edition has the original on their site at PS Fishing. I got it some time ago because we used to take lots of trips to the beach in Mrs. El Fisho's four door mid-sized sedan, that didn't accomodate large two piece rods well with the kiddos and luggage.

It's a reasonably priced rod for the traveler, but I also now would like to have the 9 foot version of that rod. Mine comes in a 6'10", but the rod will fit in my carry on bag (diagonally, but it will fit). It works well with both spining and baitcasting or spincasting reels.

This is the rod that I use for fishing when I'm visiting California in the coastal areas and want to do some pier or surf fishing. Although it could be a bit longer with a bit lighter action for some of the lightweight surf fishing I've done in Santa Monica or Malibu, it does pretty well as a combo rod.

It's got plenty backbone for pier fishing, although again experts recommend a lighter action rod for both surf and pier for the fun of it, being from Texas I'm ever hopeful of landing a whopper off the end of the pier and would be happy to have a rod with some backbone in it to haul my trophy up to the pier.

The main thing is, it fits in my carry on bag, along with a couple of small reels and a small tackle box. These items do tend to raise scrutiny atthe TSA checkpoints, but I have come to expect this. Once they see it, you're on your merry way. I usually just put the small tackle box in a bin with my reels, all in a baggie, and with my liquid toiletries. They look, no big deal.

I've had my rod checked out once, but again, once he looked at it, he said "nice rod, have a good time" and bade me farewell. Same with the reels. No biggie.

I usually carry a Shimano Curado loaded with some kind of great braided line testing about 60 lbs or so. I use a flourocarbon leader with that line. I also carry either a Garcia Abu 290 loaded with 20 lb mono or an ancient Daiwa Silvercast with 15 lb test line. The Daiwa is an amazing reel, and although I've owned several of the same model and type of reel bought at the same time, this one cast twice as far as any excellent quality spin cast reel I've ever owned. It rivals the Curado and my Ambassador 5000 for sheer distance.

I use the Daiwa in the surf, because it just casts so dang far. Most of the folks you see fishing the surf where I do are use light and long rods, with very light mono, so me using 15 lb test is a bit of overkill.

I use the Curado for pier fishing, or when fishing near shore around rocks.

Both of these reels are lightweight, and coupled with this very lightweight rod, it makes for a nice day of fishing. Like anything else using stuff in your hands, like golfing, hunting, fishing, etc, the less weight you have to carry and hold means a more pleasureable outing.

I've got a small shoulder bag that was originally some sort of 6 pack ice chest with a strong shoulder strap that I use for my traveling tackle box. It's got a zipper compartment on top of the lid as well as side zippered compartments for stuff. I keep the weights, small folding pliers (no knife blade) and nippers in baggie in the top of the tackle bag so I can pull them out at screening.

Nothing makes a screener more nervous than seeing a hunk of lead come through the maching in a bag.

The coast in California often gets REAL DEEP REAL FAST, as with that on Florida's Atlantic coast. Not a gradual decline like some Texas beaches. That's great as far as I'm concerned, because it means that it's more likely that fish will be closer to shore with deep water.

I enjoy roaming the beach in California, or fishing from a nice pier on a nice day. The water is blue, and if you get lucky you'll see a whale or lots of sea lions.