Larger Central Coast Barred Surfperch on the Fly

     Was listening to fish radio, featuring some guy from the San Diego area who’d just written a book on California surf fishing. Radio host called him a “surf guru”.

The guru said a couple things that made me chuckle.

First thing: “San Diego beaches attract the largest barred perch on the coast.”

After absorbing that comment for a moment, my bullshit meter tilted. As a SoCal beach veteran transplanted to Morro Bay, above The Point, I would argue that Central Coast barred surfperch run, on average, substantially larger than their southern cousins. And consider: the world record barred surfperch was caught at Montana de Oro, right out in front of Los Osos/Morro Bay. Sure, you might find large individuals on any California beach, and that makes the effort worthwhile, but, sorry to have to disagree, San Diego Guru, day-in, day-out, the beaches north of Point Conception hold bigger surfperch. Heck, Santa Barbara area beaches hold larger perch than the San Diego area. Just saying.  

Another thing. The guru advised a caller to: “fan your casts.”

But anybody who has spent any time on the wet sand will know, as a general rule-of-thumb: You fish perpendicular to the wave sets. And move your body to change casting targets. Sure, when water is sweeping, a cast placed ‘upstream’ will counter the sweep, bringing your fly to fairly perpendicular as you strip it in. But a line thrown more than a few degrees off perpendicular will be bellied and sailed by the incoming waves. The more angle, the more line area presented broadside to the wave, the quicker the line is carried, out of control, parallel to the beach. “Fanning” casts is not a good idea in the surf unless you have nearly lake-like conditions – and that kind of surf condition, in my own experience, does not dig out enough feed to attract barred surfperch.

14" foregrip

I guess the point of this rant (if there is a real point beyond a simple writing exercise) is: Fishing the water probably brings more return for time spent than fishing the radio. 

Wish you all good luck with your books.

~Steve

Wet sand wizard Peter VanHest with a nice Hearst Ranch barred surfperch.