It was a wild surf this morning at Palm Beach! 11 loyal members showed up at dawn ready to do battle with the wild surf, sea lions and barred perch. Their skills produced 20 – 25 or so barred perch. A rather large sea lion patrolled the area regularly and I suspect that is why no one caught a Striper. Next month we fish Manresa.
Our group: Judy Johnson, Aaron Reisman, Todd Goudberg, Jeff Gose, Mark Traugott, Robert Eberle, John Davis, Joe Clark, Sean Hyslop, Kirk Mathew and yours truly, Sam Bishop
Wow, what a great turnout for our surf fly fishing today, May 8, 2021! I think everyone but me (!) caught fish on this glorious spring day. It was a mid-flood tide, which is arguably the best time to fish the surf and the waves were breaking perfectly for us.
Attendees were Elaine Cook, Scott Kitayama, John Davis, Jerry McKeon, Doug Hessel, Jeff Slaboden, Kirk Mathew, Judy Johnson, Aaron Reismer, Jeff Gose Robert Eberle, Kevin McClish and Sam Bishop.
Next club surf outing is June 5 at Manresa. More info elsewhere under Gearing Up.
Me and my dad took a guided trip on the Yuba drifting near Timbuctoo. Caught a few trout and a few steelhead. On a size 8 yellowish stimulator, a few on smaller nymphs copper johns and my all time favorite nymph, Hogan’s S & M. We saw March browns hatch and pinkies I learned about I guess there are really salmon pink mayfly looking things. I enjoyed swinging as per always and caught some on a belly ache minnow fly which opposed to a bead head or dumbbell eyes the weight is a scud weight tied to belly. Our guide was Chuck Ragan who was awesome. Chuck turned out to be best friends with Hogan Brown who is the creator of my ‘go to’ fly, Hogan’s S & M.
On the SCFF annual O’Neil Forebay Striper fishout last October, Jeff Slaboden lost his fly rod and reel that fell off his float tube somewhere out in this body of water. He was bummed out.
While fishing the O’Neil Forebay on February 21at, Dan Eaton hooked and landed a fly rod near the towers. Being a good guy, he posted the news on Google Groups asking if anyone in the club had lost it.
As Jeff says “The odds of getting a lost rod back from the waters of San Luis reservoir are 1 in 100 million. What a great club we have with a very generous group of people.”
Masked and socially distanced fishermen prepare to brave the surf.
We had a good turnout for the final surf fishout of the year at Palm Beach in Watsonville. Nine members hit the beach around sunrise: Sam Bishop, Elaine Cook, Gary Cramton, Bob Garborino, Scott Kitayama, Matt Maurin, the father-and-son duo of Steve and Joshua Wilkens, and myself. The fish were not overly cooperative, but it was possible to land the occasional surf perch. The proof is that Matt, one of our newest members, hooked and landed his first ever surf fish on a fly. Congratulations, Matt! Scott got the “exotic catch award” for landing a guitarfish (which I had to google, never having seen one in person.) Striped bass were, unfortunately, a no-show yet again. If you weren’t able to attend on October 11, you may want to get out to one of our State Beaches in the next few weeks, before the surf builds, the winter storms begin, and the fly-fishing focus shifts to steelhead. You can’t beat the brisk morning weather, the bright sunshine, the healthy exercise you get resisting the crashing waves, and the chance of fooling a fish.
This 2020 Labor Day weekend was due to be the hottest on record, that is the temperature of course, but unfortunately the catching was cold for the six of us that met on such a beautiful morning at Manresa Beach. The beaches were closed to people sunbathing or lounging, but open to us who were participating in “Water Activities”. Scott Kitayama caught one “Guitar Fish” and no one else even had a fish tug at a fly. Pictured left to right are Scott Kitayama, Bob Garbarino and Michael Sherwood. Not pictured are Jeff Slaboden, Gary Cramton and Sam Bishop.
Remember the great presentation last meeting on fishing top-water for Bass on Lake Oroville? Well I was fascinated, so I picked up Jerry Greer, my long time business partner and avid spin fisherman in Modesto, then we flew through horrible smoke to Oroville. Oroville was much more clear than the area from about Sacramento south, at least that day and the next.
We flew up on a Wednesday afternoon, arriving at 4 pm. Ryan picked us up with his bass boat in tow and we went straight to the lake where we fished until dead dark. I caught at least a dozen spotted bass and one smallmouth bass. Well I am not real educated on the type and identification of bass, but Ryan said that smallmouth was the largest that has been landed on his boat. So the picture of that smallmouth is attached. Didn’t look all that big to me though.
So here is another interesting revelation. Ryan, if you remember, talked about “float flies”. I didn’t know what that meant (and I doubt anyone else on the Zoom meeting did either) until we were on the water and I said let’s do that too. Lo and behold it was just an indicator/bobber, with a # 4 or #6 weighted jig hook! I had to laugh, remembering that I was in our club a year or so, afraid to show my ignorance by asking what they were talking about when they talked about an “indicator”. Heck, it just a bobber. So was this, but shaped different!
Well I am making fun of it, but it was very effective. In fact the next morning at 5 am we met Ryan at our motel and launched the boat as twilight was barely breaking. I fished the top-water poppers for over an hour with no luck, then went to the “float fly”. It worked quite well and I got at least another ten fish until we stopped at 11 am and headed back to the launch ramp, then the airport.
BTW, the flies out caught the spinner lures big time both days. Ryan even mentioned that was unusual. I was surprised too, because Jerry had great top-water gear lures. I still would not bet serious money on catching bass on a fly rod over lures on a spinning rod.
The flight back was not particularly pleasant, with smoke extending up thousands of feet. Due to the terrible visibility, I had to make instrument approaches to Modesto to drop of Jerry, then another coming in to Watsonville. I was back to home base 24 hours after leaving with a wonderful fishing adventure stored permanently in my memory.
Thanks Jim Black for arranging that presentation. I would never have known about fishing that lake without it.
This jack smelt (?) went for a variant of Sam’s perch fly.
Nine intrepid surf casters, tired of home confinement, dragged themselves out of bed early to meet at Palm Beach in Watsonville. The roster included Adam Althoff, Ralph Berman, Sam Bishop, Elaine Cook, Gary Cramton, Jeff Gose, Scott Kitayama, Jeff Slaboden, and Mark Traugott. We started under a solid bank of fog and even a few drops of precipitation, but soon we were fanning out along the beach. The surf was moderate, and the fish were not overly cooperative. Of the folks I heard from, Adam, who drove all the way from Castro Valley, was rewarded with a couple of perch, while Scott landed a personal-best 13-incher (see photo). My only fish was a jack smelt (at least I think that’s what Elaine is holding in the attached photo – let me know if I am wrong.) By the time we quit, around 9 AM, the sun was out, and we were happy enough to return to our social isolation after a pleasant morning of playing in the surf.
While the rest of the world slept (or sheltered in place), nine members of the Santa Cruz Fly Fishermen hit the beach (Manresa Beach, to be exact) at 05:30 am on Saturday, June 6, to chase the elusive sea creatures. We were so spread out, I couldn’t check with everyone before I left, but at least 15 perch had briefly come to hand before they were released. What a beautiful day it was too. So y’all come on out with us in July! (See Gearing Up for details.)
Pictured left to right, the early arrivals: Joe Clark, Peter Putt, Tom Hogye, Mark Traugott, Scott Kitayama, Judy Johnson.
Not pictured, Ralph Berman, Robert Eberle, Sam Bishop
First heard about this large bass lake from Jim Black, thanks Jim. Being a private lake we thought it might be a place where we could effectively accomplish social distancing and indeed that was the case. Booking is easy over phone and on line while Al Smatsky provided us with lots of great information. $100/day/fisherman, camping $25/night. It took us 3 hours to get there but we are slow behind the wheel. Now to the nitty gritty. Although we didn’t land many fish the quality was remarkable. Fat 17-22 inches beauties that fought like heck. Too bad it was a full moon and there had been a bass tournament 4 days prior. We did land ALL on poppers and that was the only method we used. Believe it or not, John caught the big ones. The bass habitat with lily pads was impressive and then there was a rock wall. We were also impressed with the camping area that was all grassed in under large trees making it easy to tolerate the heat. We are anxious to return, and will.
This trip was a weird one, from beginning to end. The first glitch came when I got the notice to check in. I did so, and obtained my boarding pass. I tried to get John’s pass as well, but he was not listed as a passenger on the same locator number, which was odd. No matter what search criteria I used, I could not find John. John finally resorted to calling the airline, and to his dismay, he was not ticketed, so after spending all afternoon on the phone, he finally managed to get a last-minute ticket.
We got the same flight, although not seated together, and arrived in Atlanta, spent the night as planned, and flew out to Georgetown Exuma the following morning.
We picked up a small car at the airport. We noted several scratches on the right front door of the vehicle. We stopped by a deli to get some lunch provisions, and when we came back out to the car, we noticed a big dent on the same side of the car as the scratches. John was afraid we would be held accountable for the dent, but it was rusty and had obviously happened before we rented the car. A lady saw us walking around the car, fretting, and came out. She offered to call the car rental place to tell them about the dent, as she was related to the owner of the rental agency. She squared things up with them, and we went on our way.
Tom Pelikan and Noelle Nichols had gotten to Exuma several days before us, and they reported they had had a good day’s fishing, so we anticipated something similar. That was not to be. The weather was so windy our guide, Drex Rolle, called us to cancel our first day’s fishing. We spent the first three days hunkered down, waiting for conditions to improve. We finally got to go out, John went up to bat first. Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to work line out or get any distance on his casts. Drex coached him, and finally took the rod to demonstrate, much to John’s chagrin. Drex caught a mangrove on his back cast, wiggled the line to get it loose, only to have the tip section come off the end of the rod. He carefully retrieved the rod tip, and discovered it had fractured right above the ferrule. Fortunately, we had my Orvis Helios II, which John used for the rest of the day. I only got up briefly all day. I think John got two fish, tagged a few more but did not land them. It was a pretty scanty day.
The next time we went out a couple of days later, I caught a good-sized bone fish on my second cast. We thought, hoo, boy, it’s going to be a great day if this keeps up! It didn’t. John didn’t score until after lunch. There were the few schoolies after that, but nothing to write home about.
We had a third day out, but again, the fishing was not that productive. Tom and Noelle had to leave before we were to depart, so John offered to take them to the airport. After dropping them off, he went over to the car rental agency to thank them for being so nice about the dent. No good deed goes unpunished. He backed into a post behind the car and put a sizable dent in the bumper!
We spent the rest of our time resting, reading, and watching the COVID-19 crisis unfold. We were worried we wouldn’t be able get back into the USA. It came time for us to try to fly home. We got back out to the airport, checked the car in and John settled the bumper issue with the rental agency. We got in line to check in. John suddenly discovered he did not have his passport! He ran back across the street to the car rental agency to look for it. I got out of line and piled our bags in the corner. I waited, almost in tears, not knowing what he was doing. He was gone for almost an hour, and his phone was left in my bag, so I had no idea what was going on. He finally came running back in, having found the passport back at our bungalow, on the bathroom floor. We checked in, and got aboard, and flew in to Atlanta. We were supposed to fly out to LAX and then on to SJC after clearing customs. We got aboard a nice, cushy 777, but they couldn’t start the starboard engine. They fiddled with it for over an hour before pushing us back to the gate and making us get off. The time for our connections had long since lapsed, so we had to rebook with the gate agents. They couldn’t get us home that same night, so they gave us hotel vouchers, and booked us on a morning flight straight through to SJC.
We stayed in the airport Westin in Atlanta. We left instructions for a wakeup call for 6 AM. Not only did they not call, the room clock had not been reset for EDT, so when we did arise, we only had 30 minutes to jump on the shuttle and get ourselves over to the airport, go through TSA, and get on the westbound flight. It was eerie. We were on a 737, and counting us, there were only 20 passengers on the flight.
This isn’t so much an article about fishing as it is a caveat for anyone planning any trips in the near future. We can’t fault the good people of Exuma, they took very good care of us, fed us well, and did their level best to make our vacation enjoyable. Nobody has control on fishing, nature or a pandemic. All we can do is cope, use good sense, wash our hands, stay home and pray this latest crisis resolves itself. For now, we are just happy to be home, safe and well!
We had a great day roaming the building to find things to buy, attending a couple power point lectures and getting the gear we want for the trip to Pyramid Lake in March.
The tailgate party actually had a tailgate, Jim brought his own smoked salmon caught off the4 Play last summer. The color and taste of local fish is the best.
We all brought sandwiches and coldbeer and snacks to share. The tuna jerky was pretty strange, we agreed later.
To miss the traffic mess home, we went to the Hopyard Brewery/restaurant for sliders andPliny the younger or elder beer. Thanks to Jeff (Yog) for designated driving Jim Tolonen’s car home,and to Sam Bishop who had us over for a cold one, he drove in his truck and therefore is not in thephoto. We saw many club members there and friends from other places. It was like a reunion feeling all day.
