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I am going to stay a couple days in the Mendocino Area by Van Damme State Park, which has the Little River flowing through it to sea. :shock: Any insights into fishing opportunities for salmon/steelhead/whatever on that river would be much appreciated. :)
Went on line to the Dept. of Fish and Game. The Little River is in the North Central District 6.32. 1.Season 4th Sat. in May- Oct. 31. Artificial/ barbless only. Take: cutthroats over 10 inches. No other salmonids may be taken. 2.Season Nov. 1-May 31. Take: cutthroats over 10 inches, 1 hatchery trout OR 1 hatchery steelhead (artificials/ barbless.) NO salmon or wild steelhead may be taken.
Wow!!! I didn't think there were any Sea-Run Cutts south of the mouth of the Eel River (Humboldt County).... :? :? Does anyone know if this is an attempt to reestablish these fish in that area :?: :?: :?:
Actually, I'd rather pursue rockfish in the Kelp or surf perch at Van Damme than harrass 10" Cutts. 8) 8) 8)
Thanks for the info. I've never tried to catch rockfish or perch. What kind of flies would I use? Surf candy? Clouser? Hopefully, I'll have a chance to give it a whirl up there. But I'll be with my girl and I don't know if flyfishing fits with this trip. Maybe I'll just scout out locations for next time.
My wife and I hiked several miles along Little River and didn't see any fish. We were there two weeks ago and the water is pretty small. I think I would take the Salt H2O stuff with you and go after the rock fish if the stream shows you nothing.
Kraig
Clousers are good wherever they're used.... Just a word of caution for that area tho.... It's snaggy there (Van Damme). You might want to try to stick to sandier areas around the park. Other flies might be Crazy Charlies, any shrimp or steelhead pattern. Even Wooly Buggers. Orange seems to be a key color in surf fishing. If you need to tie up some flies, look up www.fliesunlimited.com or www.zenflyfishing.com . Both of these websites display surf flies. 8) 8)
Good luck and rememer to be carefull in the surf over there. :D :D
I caught quite a few perch from the beaches north of Monterey last month on the red "micro shrimp" from Jay Murakoshi's web site that Darian listed (www.fliesunlimited.com). I combined that with various other surf flies, but they almost always hit the micro shrimp. They others that they hit were orange, as Darian suggests. The Ruffy is one from Jay's collection that worked for me. I realized why the orange color is effective when I hooked a couple of the little sand crabs that were out there scooting around in the surf. They had a bright orange underbelly area that I'm guessing was roe? The Soft Shell Sand Crab pattern on Jay's site looks just like them, but I'm afraid I did not have any of those to try out.