Dried Out California
- This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated Jul 31, 2014 at 11:53 am by
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Tracy and I were invited out to a wedding in beautiful Southern Cal last week. I hauled my gear all the way there and drove into the Santa Ynez river valley only to be confronted with this:
The location though is absolutely gorgeous:
This is where the wedding took place (on Figueroa Mountain):
So anyway, no proper trip report but we did try. They are supposed to get an El Nino this year and things may pick up.
Zach
Having grown up in So Cal, that first picture is typical of most watersheds in the mountains south of the Sierras. Not many streams hold much water throughout the season except in remote regions and those that do, get sucked dry by the water authorities. I spent my youth less than a mile from one such stream in the San Gabriel mountains. Well before it left the canyon, the local water authority took 100% of the water. The only time the creek had water below that was during heavy winter storms. Above that, the creek held small native rainbows, however getting there was tough and sometimes illegal because the water authorities had fenced off and posted the mouth of the canyon. That was in the 1960s, its probably even worse today.
Strategy without Tactics is a Slow Route to Victory, Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat - Sun Tzu
You should have brought fly fishing gear for the surf, or for off shore fishing lots of fish being caught off shore as well. Plenty of water in the Pacific.
Ben I thought about that but didn’t realize there was a drought. For future reference what exactly are the surf species in the Pacific and how do you target them? Those waves were considerably bigger than anything I have dealt with in the Gulf.
Zach some of the more common species caught from the surf include bard surf perch, halibut, corbina, yellowfin croaker, leopard sharks. There are a lot more fish often caught but these are what most of the fly guys catch out in SoCal.
Red Surf rats, surf bug, and clousers. Red in particular seems to attract more perch and halibut, although most of the fish are opportunistic feeders and will eat just about anything passing in front of them.
The Surfin Merkin, are used to sight cast for corbina. These fish are one of the most difficult fish to get to take the fly, but they are so much worth the efforts once hooked.Most guys use a 6wt fast action rod with 200-250 grain full sinking line. For bigger fish like leopard sharks an 8wt with 270-350 grain sinking line would work.
The fun part of fly fishing the surf is that you really never know what you might hook. It could be a small perch or a leopard shark that will take you well into your backing.
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