Hey Peter,

To answer your question... yes they are a hard fish (Calicos) to catch if in fact you are targeting them from a kayak with a flyrod.

If you are fishing for them with swimbaits and grubs that is a different story but still a real challenge.

Are you using a sinking flyline? I will assume that you are but if not I would recommend a "Teeny" brand sink tip line with a 8-9 weight flyrod. The Teeny sink lines are a lot more user friendly than a shooting head with a running line. I know from experience that it is frustrating to say the least to flycast a sinking line from a kayak but it can be done a bit more easily if you can master a hard wiggle pick-up of the flyline to get it to the surface.

When fishing a sinking line, I would recommend fishing the outer edges of a kelp bed and that will allow you to fish the entire water column with less chance of getting hung up. Fongster gave some good suggestions but you will probably want to steer clear of boilers when using a flyrod and sinking line. You can get hung up in a hurry fishing shallow boilers and that could cost you your flyline. At $50-$60 a pop, that is something you will want to avoid so stick to fishing the outside edges of the kelp.

The fly patterns that work the best for me are big "deceiver patterns" made famous by Lefty Kreh. The beautiful thing about saltwater flies is that they are easy to tie and just about any bunch of feathers, hair and flash will work.

Here are some of Dave's deceiver patterns that work well for me in Mex. and Costa Rica. These patterns are a bit small for Calico fishing but the Cabrilla, Jacks, trumpetfish, ladyfish, needlefish and small Groupers seem to love them down there.

http://home.earthlink.net/~beachikeen/_uimages/davesdeceivers.jpg

All you have to do is tie some similar patterns in chovey, sardine and squid but just bigger. 4-5 inches would be about the right size for local species.

Here is a link to some good saltwater fly patterns:


Good luck out there!! :D

Dave(Outrage)