Casting flies into the Pacific surf for redtail surf perch seems like a low probability proposition but I’ve been able to guess or luck my way into a fish both times I’ve tried. I swear I may have spent more time reading about how to catch the things than I have actually fishing for them.
We stayed at the same rental place two years ago and I managed a fish at high tide in an early morning session back then. This week was another Spring Break family vacation so my fishing was limited but I had the advantage of what I learned last time along with a great view of the beach from the back yard. There was a clear basin in the beach that drained troughs on each side and resulted in an interesting rip and deeper water that was very obvious on both sides of low tide. It was right below the rental’s back yard and oh so juicy looking. I decided that I’d fish the headland rocks to the south where a creek dumps out and which I had not fished the last time I was here, but is also obvious structure, albeit rocky not sandy structure. I planned to start there at low slack, an -0.1 and lowest of my stay, and then move to the rip after an hour or so, which is what I did.
^This was my first target area, picture taken a day or two before fishing it.
I had my old TFO Lefty Kreh 8 wt which has definitely earned Old Warhorse status and a 300 grain streamer express sink tip line. This combo will cast to Hawaii if you can manage (and stretch) the line properly. I also had my stripping basket (key) and some fresh simple flies, lighter than what I had started with in my fly box, and which I knew from experience were too heavy (and I figured I’d snag in the rocks).
^I woke up hours before my tide, stoked to fish, and tied some bleary-eyed simple flies.
It was so cool wading out to where I first fished amongst all the mussels, barnacles, sea stars, common murres and quite a few harlequin ducks.
^There are birds in these photos, I swear.
Alas, no fish, so I moved to the other side of the rip created where the creek and surge scours a hole.
Nothing here either, so it was time to walk up to the sandy basin/trough rip. I stopped and fished some more subtle structure along the way but didn’t want to waste the tide on the less juicy stuff so I didn’t spend too long there, moving to a spot I guess I’d describe as the trough inlet. I thought I might’ve had a few taps here but wasn’t sure. I kept moving to the fish juice.
^The “inlet of the trough.”
Mmm fish juice. This spot was harder to fish with bigger waves, maybe because the flood tide was picking up steam, too. But then, in the zone and realizing in the back of my mind (not that far back though) that I probably wasn’t going to fish much longer (the morning was getting on) but thoroughly enjoying myself in spite of the gosh darn increasingly annoying right hand wind, I hooked a fish.
^The left side of where the trough empties into the rip.
Should I say, I hooked a fish! ? I mean there’s not much to it after that. I took too long to kill and gut the fish right away, and I did go back to fish more but if there was a school, it was probably long gone. And the gosh darn W was really annoying, even with that shooting head line. So I quit, thinking I’d go back the next day.
We went hiking instead.
Walking through old growth Sitka spruce and Western hemlock with your family is pretty cool, too.
I didn’t fish for or catch any more perch but I put some olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper on that fish and cooked it whole over a fire overlooking the spot it lived. As my boy exclaimed twice—“Delicious!”
Couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. I could’ve done without the little dog eating a couple velella velella off the beach before I caught on which resulted in a couple days of major doggy GI distress…at a rental house. He recovered.
^It’s a dog’s life. I wish I could be this relaxed all the time, or get to the State of Chill at the beginning of vacation instead of at the end.
Sunset means it’s the end of this report. More words than fishing! But you read this far!
We stayed at the same rental place two years ago and I managed a fish at high tide in an early morning session back then. This week was another Spring Break family vacation so my fishing was limited but I had the advantage of what I learned last time along with a great view of the beach from the back yard. There was a clear basin in the beach that drained troughs on each side and resulted in an interesting rip and deeper water that was very obvious on both sides of low tide. It was right below the rental’s back yard and oh so juicy looking. I decided that I’d fish the headland rocks to the south where a creek dumps out and which I had not fished the last time I was here, but is also obvious structure, albeit rocky not sandy structure. I planned to start there at low slack, an -0.1 and lowest of my stay, and then move to the rip after an hour or so, which is what I did.
^This was my first target area, picture taken a day or two before fishing it.
I had my old TFO Lefty Kreh 8 wt which has definitely earned Old Warhorse status and a 300 grain streamer express sink tip line. This combo will cast to Hawaii if you can manage (and stretch) the line properly. I also had my stripping basket (key) and some fresh simple flies, lighter than what I had started with in my fly box, and which I knew from experience were too heavy (and I figured I’d snag in the rocks).
^I woke up hours before my tide, stoked to fish, and tied some bleary-eyed simple flies.
It was so cool wading out to where I first fished amongst all the mussels, barnacles, sea stars, common murres and quite a few harlequin ducks.
^There are birds in these photos, I swear.
Alas, no fish, so I moved to the other side of the rip created where the creek and surge scours a hole.
Nothing here either, so it was time to walk up to the sandy basin/trough rip. I stopped and fished some more subtle structure along the way but didn’t want to waste the tide on the less juicy stuff so I didn’t spend too long there, moving to a spot I guess I’d describe as the trough inlet. I thought I might’ve had a few taps here but wasn’t sure. I kept moving to the fish juice.
^The “inlet of the trough.”
Mmm fish juice. This spot was harder to fish with bigger waves, maybe because the flood tide was picking up steam, too. But then, in the zone and realizing in the back of my mind (not that far back though) that I probably wasn’t going to fish much longer (the morning was getting on) but thoroughly enjoying myself in spite of the gosh darn increasingly annoying right hand wind, I hooked a fish.
^The left side of where the trough empties into the rip.
Should I say, I hooked a fish! ? I mean there’s not much to it after that. I took too long to kill and gut the fish right away, and I did go back to fish more but if there was a school, it was probably long gone. And the gosh darn W was really annoying, even with that shooting head line. So I quit, thinking I’d go back the next day.
We went hiking instead.
Walking through old growth Sitka spruce and Western hemlock with your family is pretty cool, too.
I didn’t fish for or catch any more perch but I put some olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper on that fish and cooked it whole over a fire overlooking the spot it lived. As my boy exclaimed twice—“Delicious!”
Couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. I could’ve done without the little dog eating a couple velella velella off the beach before I caught on which resulted in a couple days of major doggy GI distress…at a rental house. He recovered.
^It’s a dog’s life. I wish I could be this relaxed all the time, or get to the State of Chill at the beginning of vacation instead of at the end.
Sunset means it’s the end of this report. More words than fishing! But you read this far!
