SoCal
June 5-12, 2010
It had been six months since Catherine had visited her family and over a year since I had been down so we decided to escape the seemingly non-stop rain in the NW and head out for a week of sun centered in San Clemente. The basic plan was to have some family time, some together time and some alone time which for me was fishing and for Catherine was swimming.
Amazing day in the kelp
On Monday I went out with Bryan Webb of Pacific Coast Fly Fishing. We had planned on doing the run to Catalina Island but the fishing there had slowed a lot and the wind looked to pick up during the day which would make for a rough ride back so we headed south out of Dana Point harbor and fished the kelp out of San Clemente and San Onofre.
The fishing was nothing short of spectacular most of the day. Within minutes of casting at the first stop I had a barracuda, a mackerel and a calico bass. It continued like this and got especially hot mid-day at a kelp bed off San Onofre where it was literally a fish per cast for an hour at least. In one spot I probably landed a dozen barracuda, a dozen mackerels, two barred sand bass and about 60 calico bass. It started to be fun seeing how little I could do to catch a fish. I'd cast and just let the fly drop, doing nothing, and rarely would I count past 15 and the line would be tight. We switched flies and tried new things, everything worked though the barracuda liked some flies more than others, the bass didn't care. We switched to a crease fly on top and got all three species on topwater. I switched to Jay's blue Titanic slider and got all three species on it. A nice barracuda took it and a seal came out of the kelp and grabbed the fish, soon I was into a huge seal on a 6-weight with line tearing off the reel. The seal surfaced with barracuda hanging out each side of his mouth right about the time I snapped the leader. That was my first long-distance release seal to be added to the weird by-catch list that up to now was all birds.
After fishing had started to slow down, we went looking for white sea bass for a bit but had no luck at all. We then headed back to Dana Point and hit the breakwater some before touring the harbor where Bryan showed me all the spots to go via kayak so I could fish on my own. Another highlight on an incredible day was the large school of porpoise that was on the feed in back of the boat for a while. There was a huge bait ball, porpoise and birds all going crazy for 15-20 minutes with porpoise breaching and water flying. After breakfast they all headed south.
San Diego Bay
On Wednesday I met Peter Piconi of SoCal Fly Fishing on Coronado Island for a morning in San Diego Bay. The weather was very overcast, cool, and misting - it felt more like Puget Sound cutthroat fishing weather than SoCal weather but this would make for near perfect conditions really. At the first flat we hit by the old ferry landing I was into the spotted bay bass almost instantly and for several hours during the tide there the fishing was HOT! I again quickly lost count but had to have landed over 40 fish. After two passes through the fish got tougher and the bite was very subtle, it took concentration to detect the strike and set the hook properly so fish were missed and one rather large fish was lost. It was mostly spotted bass but I got a few barred sand bass, mackerel, and lizard fish. We saw some tuna go by but that is all they did, go on by at high speed. We again saw a school of porpoise very close by moving through the bay.
As the bite slowed further we went further south to flats known to hold bones. There I got more bass but no bonefish, the San Diego bone is still a phantom to me but I know they are around. At the last spot we hit it hard but no one was home, or at least not eating. All in all another stellar day in the bay for me and on cue the sun came out when I was done so we spent the afternoon at the pool.
The beaches
The beach fishing the first morning was challenging, the tide was just at it's worse for San Clemente and there was a nasty shore break right on the first trough where normally the fish would be. I gave it a good shot on some rips I could fish without getting bowled over but had no luck at all. The water also has a red tide going and was off color which is probably not conducive to good beach fishing.
Fished Salt Creek on Thursday morning at the recommendation of Annemarie and Catherine. It was the best looking beach I've seen in OC, good slope to it and lots of decent rips plus clear water. Hit all the good looking spots and walked most of the beach looking for corbina but got skunked and saw no fish coming up the beach. I met a surfer on the way out who suggested I fish the other side at Strand beach so after breakfast we returned to the beach for three hours. I fished the first part of this and finally got into the surfperch before the sun came out at which point we enjoyed the sun and watching the surfers. I took a walk back down Salt Creek beach now that the sun was out to locate structure and found it and some perch and the first corbina sighting, of course with no rod in hand.
On Saturday I was back on Salt Creek at daybreak to get in the last few hours while Catherine did a swim. Walked up to where I'd seen a corbina a few days ago and did indeed see another one but spooked it and after 15 minutes it had not returned to the area. No perch bite was happening either so I walked back up and over the jetty to Strand and up to the point at the far end. There I found surfperch again willing to take the fly, in fact I was getting fish when the guy throwing bait close by was not but the fish were hitting in pretty close to the edge while he was casting way out. Pretty good way to end the trip.
Dana Point Harbor
After Bryan toured me around he harbor I decided to try my luck kayak fishing it. I rented from Capo Rentals for $20 for two hours and set off with fly rod in hand. I worked the back part of the harbor by Dana Cove the most since there was a sand flat, a good drop off, and a good rocky point all available. I did manage the bass slam on Tuesday morning getting a spotted bay bass, a barred sand bass and a calico bass on the fly. All were small compared to the kelp fish but hey, this was off exploring in a kayak in new water. Also hit the bait barge looking for croaker and another point for bass or halibut but no luck there nor did I find any bones on the sand flat, just sand bass. Managed a half dozen fish in the time i spent actually fishing aside from paddle time.
I returned to the harbor on Friday morning for another couple of hour fishing while Catherine did yoga. The wind was pretty intense which made things interesting to say the least but I managed to find fish back by Dana Cove park again. I was getting nothing on a standard baitfish pattern and when I switched to a crab/shrimp beach pattern I almost immediately had a strong grab. I ended up with a few spotted bass and my fist California halibut plus a few fish that I missed or lost. The paddle back into the wind was a pretty good workout to end the morning.
Other than fishing
Pretty much daily we did long walks along the San Clemente beach trail. Several times we headed to Trestles and several times to the train station at the north end of town. These walks usually ended at the Starbucks in SC. Catherine used the Ole Hansen pool in town quite a few times and we enjoyed the pool at her mom's place in Irvine many afternoons either alone or with the triplets. We moved to the Laguna Cliffs Marriott at Dana Point Harbor for the last few days where they had a great pool area.
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Hot tub at the Watermarke -
Fun in the pool -
Heading home
Food was pretty much Mexican either home cooked or out aside from one night. We hit several Chronic Taco locations for fish burritos and at least saw all the other ones. They are pretty hard to beat for "fast" food. We had breakfast and lunch on different days at Pacific Whey near Crystal Cove, excellent breakfast burritos and tacos. Our last night we hit Avila's El Ranchito in Laguna Beach for margaritas and swordfish tacos. Our only exception was our usual sushi feed at Gen Kai in DP, this place has t he best and most creative sushi we have seen and never fails to be great.