Friday Jul 1, 2005.
Striper time..
I drove up to Martin's beach this morning, south of Half Moon Bay. Tom at SJ flyshop was there a couple of days ago, and caught his first surfzone striper. Apparently this beach has been fishing really good, so I had to go try it. Unfortunately, the sign mostly caters to the folks coming from the north, and I missed it completely, not turning around until I had gone all the way through Half Moon Bay, wondering 'what the ..'? Grr.
Beach fee is $10. The parking lot is really close to the surf.
I'm there from 10:45am - 2pm. I've been wanting to look for stripers, and now I've found a place where people were actually catching them. Didn't see any of them chasing bait close in (preferred), but 2 guys had fish that they caught on white hair-raise jigs or poppers. One or both were caught during the time I was on the beach.
This beach is very steep and dangerous. I'm not taking the kids here. There is a definite edge too, where it just drops. I wanted to toss the fly as far beyond this edge as possible, but to standing close to this edge was difficult, as the waves coming in were really big and powerful.
I experimented with a few line setups today, on the sage 9wt 10' rod. The new RioMax 8wt-300gr shooting head, type 3, seemed a little light. I guess they really meant it as being for an 8wt. I cast my newly tied gurgler with this. Now, fishing with the surface fly is a new kind of fun.. yeah, of course trout guys do this all the time, but I haven't done so in a good long while. So I cast the thing out, and then giggle it, hoping to see a fish pounce on it. Great fun. Too bad no fish pounced on it, but like I said, stripers were around but not necessarily a lot of them in close at the time I was there.
I used the gurgler with the type 3 head, and also with the floating head. The floater seemed easier to aerialize and cast; maybe it is a little heavier, or maybe I was just getting the hang of it by the time I switched to it. I was also using a shorter leader.. maybe that was a part of it too.. I need to try all these lines with the 8wt rod now; I initially got them for my 8wt, so maybe that is the sweet spot. In between I used the 24' T14 head, which flew a lot farther than the others. Zoooomm. It is a bit heavier than the type 3 head, so maybe it just loaded the rod better. With this setup I was using a green & white clouser minnow. The gurgler feels a little useless in foamy parts of the surf. I mean, it is white and the foam is white, and there is so much splashing going on anyway that it would be a miracle if a fish saw it. I want to tie up a few versions of this fly; sliders and divers as well as the stay-on-top gurglers.
Foggy morning there, which suited me fine. I want to go back soon, earlier if possible. I heard from Tom that people were catching stripers on Pescadero and San Gregorio beaches as well.
Tides for today:
2005-07-01 01:58 PDT 0.11 feet Low Tide
2005-07-01 02:10 PDT Moonrise
2005-07-01 05:52 PDT Sunrise
2005-07-01 08:57 PDT 3.35 feet High Tide
2005-07-01 13:00 PDT 2.36 feet Low Tide
2005-07-01 16:33 PDT Moonset
2005-07-01 19:29 PDT 5.65 feet High Tide
2005-07-01 20:31 PDT Sunset