Weekend in the Marin surf...

I spent the holiday weekend chasing surfperch up along the Marin coast. On Saturday, the seas were lumpy & the surf was up - the northwest winds were howling, so I headed to Drake's Bay to fish the late afternoon incoming in relative calm. The water cleared up nicely since last weekend - no redtide or significant floating debris to contend with. Things were pretty slow during the early afternoon, but I eventually located the fish after about a 1/2-mile hike down the beach. I wound up C&R'ing a little over a dozen BSP's & calicos for the day:




On Sunday, I plowed the waters at Stinson. The waves were manageable with clear & clean surf - the wind laid down nicely all day. It was rather pleasant to fish without the usual breezy weather. There wasn't a lot of well-defined beach structure present, but the sandy beds contained some nice shallow troughs & riffles to hold fish during the late afternoon incoming. The first hour or so produced some good pulls on the rod...




I had a lot of fun battling & subduing some of the larger BSP's in the 10-11 inch range...




...though the majority of the fish were hand-size or smaller. I wound up C&R'ing a total of 42 BSP's for the day from about noon to a little after sundown.

Things are definitely looking better with each passing week along the coast - hope to experience more of the same in the weeks ahead.


TL's,

- Mark

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

PLease talk about your tackle and equipment.

I have never tried this but it looks like fun.

Great photos.

Hey Bill,

Sorry for not posting this earlier, but I've been using either a Sage 00- or 0-wt TXL outfitted with a Ross Rhythm-0 reel. I've been throwing 12- & 16-ft Rio T8 heads for each respective rod using 15-lb Amnesia black mono for the running line. As I've mentioned in previous threads (under the general fishing section), I'm fishing a triple-fly tippet that generally looks like this:




Recently, the fly patterns of choice have been my #12 dingleberry surf flies (sorry, I couldn't come up with a sexier name )...




...and my #12 scorpion worms, which have been the go-to patterns for a variety of surfperch (apologize for the poor picture quality):




It's definitely getting to be that time of the year when the perch begin to show up along many of the local beaches for their winter mating ritual. No doubt about the sport being a lot of fun on light fly gear!


- Mark

[flygolf]

I have got to try that. Thanks for the info.

[Tony Buzolich]

Mark,

That really looks like fun with such an Ultra lite fly rod. I've normally used a #6 or #8w thinking there was a chance to hook up something else and only had minimal luck.

Your reply back is also beautiful with captioned pictures and chart with great explanations.

One question about your small flies. How do you tie your scorpion fly with chenille between the double hooks?
TONY

[sculpin]

Great report and pictures . It looks like you are having a great time. Some day I'm going to try the Oregon coast to see if we have light tackle oppertunities.


Mark

Hey Tony,

Here's the basic fly tying sequence for larger #6-8 size worm patterns where lion suede is used for the body:




I've experimented with a variety of materials for the body wrap - small, fine & ultra-fine chenilles (Ice Krystal, suede) work well for the smaller worms (size-10 & under). I often leave the stinger hook fully exposed (unwrapped with body material), which seems to produce more hook-ups.

I sometimes substitute 10- to 20-lb Spectra (PowerPro, Spiderwire, etc.) in place of the mono to tie the hooks together - the Spectra gives the tail end of the worm more flexing (wiggle) action since the braid is softer than mono. The downside with using Spectra is the trailer hook has a tendency to double-over & foul the lead hook during the cast.

Give the worm a try on the tying vise & your next fishing trip (but don't chase it down with a shot of tequila! )

- Mark

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

You guys might click on the web link on Mark's profile to go to a coatal message board.

[Hairstacker]

Mark, thank you for the GREAT series of posts! This definitely does look like fun.

Thanks for the great feedback, guys! Those of us who reside in the SF Bay area are fortunate to have so many wonderful fisheries available to us, especially around this time of the year - stripers in the Delta, steelhead in the coastal/inland rivers...oh yeah, and surfperch off the beaches, too!

- Mark