Fishin report

Hit the brine yesterday. It was greasy flat all day with almost no swell to speak of. Absolutly gorgeous day on Monterey Bay. Fishing was not too bad either. Was really wanting and hunting for a Halibut but we were kept busy with the Rockfish and it never happen. It was good fun. Amazing amount of life out there. Porpoise and birds were everywhere working over huge schools of Sardines and Mac's. Rockfish are really good eating but since everything we caught was relativly shallow, we released them all. 

Flat seas!

  

Grumpy Red

Perfect Pacific morning!

Lots of life at the beach on our way in too!

Today I kicked around the idea of hooking up the boat but, eventually decided to do some Carpin instead. Its been a wierd  year so far on the Carp front for me. I'm sure it's due to the strange ass weather we've had all season. I've had short bursts of really good fishing with some nice fish thrown in and then long spells where there just isn't any, or very short windows of, active flats fish. Spawners have been around, but I dont mess with em and I'm talking about active tailing and mudding fish. It's just been really inconsistant as apposed to years past. Anyone else out there seen the same thing?

 Fist lake had bankies all over it so went on a hunch and checked reservior that numbers are usually the deal. Stayed positive but I didn't get my hopes up. I got up on a high point when I first arrived and could see half a dozen shallow tailers and maybe a dozen deeper mudding fish in a football field size area. You know that feeling! I was pretty anxious to get my ass at there level and get to work! Size was average to a little on the small side but I really didn't care. They were agressive and really busy. I only saw one double digit fish tailing and just couldn't get a crack at her.

In my area,  Mid-day in the gut of the summer around these parts is numbers time with lighter 5-6wt sticks. In the 6 hours I had 25-30 shots and stuck 13 so I was pretty satisfied. Some of them would lift there body half out of the water to get on that bug! Can't buy that kind of fun. I left them eating and might just have to go back tommorow.

Stripers

This last moon phase screwed with my striper fishing a little. I was getting a little spoiled with all you want type fishing and had to work for them this time. I knew the large aggressive schools of fish were going to break up as we move into a dog days of summer type pattern eventually. Summer usually consists of wind, wind and a little more wind! Bait has shifted and is spreading out which always repositions the fish. Once we found them, they would eat but it took a while to find a concentration of active fish and they were spread out from the surface to about the 50ft mark. Wind was on order and played hell with casting flies and kept us on our toes trying to find fishable water and off the good off-shore areas for the most part. We finally had enough of that shitty wind and head to the barn with it blowing about 25kt and building quick. We'll get em next time!

Central California

Since I live somewhere in the middle and close to hundreds of miles of low pressure Coastal Rivers, streams and even lesser known creeks, Ive been doing some exploring for new water this last year or two. Left the house about 3 and spent the afternoon playing around with some pretty little coastal natives. Not another human was seen while we were there. It was perfect.

Ridge top at dusk

Blue Gill x Red Ear hybrids

All lit up..

Carp on the fly..

Checked two or three places and decided on a local lake close to home. The other places I checked seemed to have the same fish doing the same thing, except they have much higher water levels that can make access to good water almost impossible until the levels drop a few feet and expose some good productive flats.

Over all I had to work for everything today. Fish were tailing around clam beds out of range when I arrived about noon. I started seeing singles here and there as the day went on.. No grabs the first couple of hours but kept at it and scored three legit eats. One motored down on the fly and I blew it, the other two were small but I'll take em! They were good strong fish for there size so it was ok by me. With flats so stained/muddy an all black bugger was the only thing I had confidence in, and it worked out in the end.

Clams are definitly part of the Carps diet. Just not sure how to incorporate it into fly fishing for them at this point, or if it will even make a difference. I've seen the Gulls here for years digging up clams, flying over to a paved area and dropping them from about 50-60ft, and them land and eat the broken clam. Prett damn smart.



 

Small late season spawners in the backs.