Fly Fishing for Perch
This past week my wife and I spent some vacation time at Pacific Beach in Washington. I am retired USAF and there is a Navy recreation site at PB. We took our trailer and stayed in the campground. There is also a nice state park at PB (it has electric, but no sewers hookups). Some time ago I read an article on the Net about fly fishing for surfperch along the coast. I tried it last year, with limited success. I decided to try it again while on vacation. I bought a 2-day WA license ($8 and change) and set about finding out when the hi/lo tides were. Next day I hit the beach at 6:30AM for a minus tide. The clamers were out too, but I was the only fisherman. At around 8AM I caught 2 fish on a deep pink (almost purple) Teeny nymph. Not too impressive. That afternoon I sorted thru my flies and picked out some pink, red and orange ones as well as red/white and read/yellow. The latter worked for a couple of fish at Cape Lookout last year. One of the flies I took was a crappy jig I tied myself a few years ago. It is pink chenille with what used to be a white marabou tail. The tail has darkened with age to a very off white. Well, that evening at low tide I tried the Teeny again but only got a hit or two that were tentative at best. I decided to try the pink jig and was I glad. The first cast brought a vicious hit and a 10” perch. I caught and released 7 more fish in the 8”-12” range over the next 30 minutes or so. I was even further amazed at the fact that when I stood in knee deep water and cast within 2 rod lengths of me I caught fish or got hits which didn’t hook up. Then at about ½ hour after high tide it all quit. I continued casting for another 30 min. without a hit. The next day I went out at high tide and caught 3 more. The activity at high tide was much shorter in duration. I was using a 4 weight fly rod with a DTF line and about 8’ of leader with 6lb at the tip. The bigger fish gave quite a good account of themselves and several of the ones I lost were bigger fish who would turn side ways as a wave came in and swim right at me. The line would go lack and they were gone. In retrospect I think a Teeny nymph in a lighter shade of pink might work well too. The Teeny was a size 8 and the jig is tied on a size 6 hook with a 2x shank.
Great fun.
[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
__________________
Marko
Member #131
Tight Lines
|
Thumper
Linear Mode
