I just finished my second ever fly-fishing outing to the southern California surf. Arrived at La Conchita beach (between Ventura and Santa Barbara, just south of Rincon Point) at 6 AM and got to fish the incoming tide until about 11 AM. Eventhough I don't have much experience fly-fishing in the surf, I had a blast today. I hooked 11 surf perch and managed to bring 9 of them to hand and had a long distance release of the other two. None of the fish were very big and I certainly wasn't any where close to seeing my backing. Nevertheless, it was a grand day on the beach. I saw the sun rise behind me, saw dolphins playing near the surf zone and the fish were cooperating. It doesn't get much better than this.

Way to go on the perch...they will normally cooperate with you since they aren't picky about bait. Scrappy little devils too. They are actually kind of addicting...good job!

what kind of fly were you using and what size and color? hehehe sorry bout all the ?'s but ive been trying to get sandbass and stuff with clousers forever. but still no luck. im willing to try anything just to devirginize my flyrod. thanks!

"dont bother me... im fishin."

I wish I could tell the name of the fly I was using but I don't know it's name. It's fairly small, about a size 6, has beaded-eyes and is mostly orange. It looks like a sand crab but all dressed in orange. I've been told that orange is the magic color when fishing for perch in the surf. This trip helped solidify that impression. I started tossing a small (size 4) green & white clouser but had no takers. Then this orangey-thing in my fly box caught my eye and I gave it a try. I can't remember if I picked it up at Bob Marriotts or if I got it from Gary Bulla when I took his surf clinic. However, any smallish weighted fly with lots of orange should be the ticket to perch action.

I was tossing a type 6 sinking shooting-head on my 9 weight rod, stripping fast to maintain contact with my fly. I'm still learning how to cast a shooting head so I wasn't getting tremendous distance, but most of my grabs were within 20-30 feet and right near the end of my stripping and just before I was going to start my next cast. All of my fish were caught as I cast out into the breakers. I had no grabs on my casts that were parallel to the beach.

Hope this helps. I wouldn't have had a clue on how to do this if our fly fishing club (Kern River Fly Fishers) hadn't had an outing to one of Gary Bulla's surf fishing clinics back in mid-July. We had 13 anglers come over from Bakersfield and Gary spent 4-5 hours with us showing us how to survive in the surf. It was well worth the small cost. This time, I was by myself, but I felt well prepared to battle the wiley surf perch.

the fly your talking about is called a crazy charlie. works well in orange or red

Thanks for the description of the setup. What length and X of
leader? Any split shot? Thanks.

The setup was remarkably simple. Since I'm using a relatively fast sinking shooting head (30' of type 6 shooting head from Rio in a 10 weight to help load my 9-weight rod) I don't use any additional weight (split shots). I have about 3' of fairly stout mono leader (I think it is 20 lb test but it could be 30 lb) that the San Jose Fly Shop nail knotted on the end of my shooting head. I ordered my reel pre-spooled with backing, Amnesia intermediate running line and Rio shooting head from them. I have tied a small loop with a double surgeon's loop knot at the end of my leader. I then tie up fairly short (again about 3') leaders to my flies and use a loop-to-loop connection to connect the two sections of leader together. On this day I was using straight 10 lb test fluorocarbon tippet.

In summary I have 3 feet of straight 20 or 30 lb test mono connected loop-to-loop to a 3 feet section of straight 10 lb test fluorocarbon which is connected to my fly.

I like the short leader and the flexibility that a loop-to-loop connection gives me. I've talked to folks who use a fairly long leader when chasing corbina (12 to 14 feet) but I can't caste well enough yet to handle a long leader. The surf is a quite dynamic environment where the fish is making a quick decision to grab the fly. The water is usually cloudy with sand and silt so I can get away with a short fairly stout leader. Of course, maybe that's why I haven't hooked any corbina yet.

I usually have a few flies pre-tied to 3 foot sections of fluorocarbon stashed in a small zip-lock bags and tucked into a compartment of my small chest pack. The loop-to-loop connection makes swapping flies very quick. No knots to tie while I'm out in thigh deep water battling the waves. Just unconnect one fly and leader and connect the next.

Hope this helps