Surf fly fishing

[PatrickM]

I have been wanting to try surf fly fishing for a while now...

is there anything different when talking about techniques of casting that i need to know about?


also.....would a 9ft 8wt rod and reel setup work for surf fly fishing???



thanks for all of your help!!!!!


Patrick M.

[Banzai]

try this site Patrick http://www.zenflyfishing.com/ He's one of the Cali surf gurus.

[PatrickM]

thanks for link....


that is exactly what i needed!!!!



Patrick M.

[pcknshvl]

try this site Patrick http://www.zenflyfishing.com/ He's one of the Cali surf gurus.
Also garybulla.com. He does the same.

Look into double-handed rods for the surf, too. The East Coast striper guys have a lot of info about this.

Have fun!

Tom

[agent montana]

THe CND Oceania..Can't speak enough about this rod!! Designed for East Coast surf fishing but I have used it on teh beaches in the sound..Steelheading and the surf!! Check with Ron @ All About the Fly...

[sturgeon crazy]

what specificly are you going to be fishing for? when you say surf fishing, are you talking about pacific baches/ river mouths? or puget sound? could make a big difference in your equipment.
SC

[PatrickM]

sorry i i should have been more specific about my type of surf fishing...

I want to fish on the beach on the northern coast of California (Half Moon bay Area)


I have been told that there are lots of fish available like surf perch, stripped Bass and local rockfish...


I hope this helps

Patrick M.

[Steve Rohrbach]

Try to find a copy of the following book. Ken Hanley is from California and he does a lot of beach fishing.

Fly Fishing Afoot in the Surf Zone (Paperback)
by Ken Hanley "The Pacific Coast is a true frontier-a place for dreamers and adventurers..."

I found the book listed on Amazon. I have a copy and it provides some good basic information.

Best regards, Steve

[sturgeon crazy]

for surf perch i would use a fast 7 wt and for stripers/rock bass/lings i would fish an 8 wt. the main thing to keep in mind is the wind. there are very few windless days on the coast even in sunny california. I would also suggest only fishing shooting heads wether ther integrated or old school. the waves will grab your floating section of line and drag evrything in around your feet. another thing, when casting, try and time your casts to land in the flats between waves. this will give it time to sink and go under them before the next one comes.
great surf perch fly:
#2 3407
yellow marabou tail about length of body
body of gold diamond braid
large dumbell eyes
fl. orange marabou beard to hook bend
visualize it as a gaudy crazy charlie and you got it. I think John shewey or bill shifman came up with this fly years go when there was only a handfull of us in the Licoln city area flyfishing the surf. it works great when the fish are around. you can also try pink wooly buggers with dumbell eyes in the same size.
SC

[agent montana]

THe CND Oceania..Can't speak enough about this rod!! Designed for East Coast surf fishing but I have used it on the beaches in the sound..Steelheading and the surf!! Check with Ron @ All About the Fly...
I love this rod!! I can't say it enough!! I love this rod!!

[TimHa]

I've fish the surf from San Diego up through the Washington coast mostly for surfperch but also corbina in SoCal and the occaisional shark or halibut. My typical outfit is a 9' 6-weight rod and a 200 - 300 grain Teeny-type line. I carry both the 200 and the 300 because some days you just need the 300 to keep the fly on the bottom. Leaders are simple - 3-4' of 8 lbs. test is pretty much all I use. A stripping basket is also mandatory. Flies are a bit different for locations - in WA through NoCal I use bigger flies like a #2 Surfpercher Red. In SoCal I use smaller flies in #4-#6 and orange seems to be the key color for me there. I also use flies that are a bit more realistic in SoCal, especially for corbina.

One thing I learned on my last SD trip was to use a Belgian or Tension cast in the surf. You can get the shooting head part of the line out, do the loopy tension cast once and let it rip on the upstroke and you shoot line out and up over the incoming waves very well. I can't explain it better than that w/o video but it has changed my surf fishing forever. No effort on the cast at all and you can let the line really fly.

The hardest thing for me was learning to read the surf. I accidently discovered good holes falling off the boogey board last year and so this year I had Peter Piconi from the SD Fly Shop teach me how to read the water to find the holes and troughs. It seemed to work because I had very succesful days each time out after one morning with him. There is some discussion on this in Shewey's NW FlyFishing: Beyond Trout volume 1 and a good article by Ken Hanley on surf fishing up somewhere on the web, I'll try and find it. Get out when the tide is low and it is much easier to find the structure the fish need, as the tide comes in and the beach fills up it gets pretty tricky to figure out where the fish might lie. It takes some getting used to to look for the rips and side currents in the surf that mean fish.

Tim

[polepole]

PatrickM,

From your neck of the woods ... http://www.zenflyfishing.com/ Everything you wanted to know about flyfishing NorCal beaches.

-Allen

[Jim Wallace]

There is also an excellent article on on surf perch fishing on Dan Blanton's website. He's a well known salt fly fisher in Cali. Check out: wwwdanblanton.com

I'll add what I know to the already great posts above.

At first glance, the beach is often inscrutable. Don't let that put you off.
Best time here in WA is early morning before the wind comes up, maybe the elusive "evening glass-off," or any day when the wind is lite and the surf is small or med-small. Medium-to-strong NW prevailing winds in the Spring and Summer here blow the line back at you, especially if you are right handed and fishing a West-facing ocean beach.
We are entering a period where the winds are often calm or even light offshore in the morning. I'm talking crack-o-dawn/sunrise early. There's been a good overcast every morning and lite winds here in "the land of gray"for the past week. I should have been on it, but the tides weren't right for me. Now low tides are coming around in the early morning again.
Some places here fish best before and during the low-tide change, especially beaches with a very shallow slope.
At high tide, look for steep beaches with a deep area or channel near the beach.
Surf perch are very opportunistic and will grab at anything that resembles food. They are quick at spitting out flies, so be quick on the hookset. Bright flies are best, as mentioned in above posts, as the water is usually roiled up by the surf.

Never turn your back on the surf for more than an instant. Learn how to read waves and spot a potential "sneaker" wave...a wave that is travelling faster than and catching up to the wave preceding it...it sneaks in quick with a low profile on the deeper water on the back of that preceding wave and when it passes it, it suddenly rears up and breaks faster and harder, with more than the force of the average wave you are seeing that day.

[pcknshvl]

I love this rod!! I can't say it enough!! I love this rod!!

I've heard rumors of a "Pacifica" series, back when Juro was the CND rep....