One of the reasons people fish with a fly rod is that fly fishing takes them to amazingly beautiful places. Mostly, that’s because fly fishing and trout fishing are almost synonymous, and in California, trout live in pure, cold rivers and lakes in dramatic landscapes such as the high Sierra and the Siskiyous or in lovely coastal streams in the northern part of the state. Other species in other venues also attract flyrodders, of course, but the scenery at man-made impoundments or valley bass ponds just isn’t the same.
In Central California, fly fishers seeking both angling action and natural beauty don’t have a lot of options. There are some pleasant trout fisheries, but these tend to be small and fragile, streams best kept secret from the world at large. Most of the rivers are dammed, and while there’s plenty of fishing in the reservoirs these create, the trout in them are mostly planters, they share the water with other introduced species, including bass and carp, and when you look up, what you see is not an awe-inspiring landscape, but a bathtub ring.
The Central Coast, however, does offer fly fishers a world-class fishery in terms of both angling action and the stunning beauty of the setting. It’s the coastline itself, from Monterey down through Big Sur to Point Conception. The quarry here isn’t trout — it’s surfperch in the suds and rockfish, cabezon, and even lingcod in the tide pools. The beaches of California are the envy of people in cold-weather countries all over the world. Take it from me, born and raised in Iceland: there’s nothing more envy-inducing in my friends than when I send them images of me fishing in the middle of the winter on a golden sand beach, looking into the sunset over the Pacific Ocean, the rugged coastal scenery rising at my back, while they are stuck at home in darkness and snow. And the angling conditions are ideal. The beaches on the Central Coast are generally less steep than what surf anglers fishing north of Monterey might encounter, with gradual drop-offs and structure that is easy to fish, but with a bit more swell action than the beaches south of Point Conception, which tend to be flatter than the surf on the Central Coast. In this environment, the surfperch is right at home and in water seemingly made for the fly angler.
And there’s more. The thing about fishing the beaches, or fishing in salt water in general, is that the fishing is directly tied to the tides. This makes it difficult to get in a full day of fishing, at least with any level of consistency, by fishing just the beach all day. That’s why the perfect counterpart to fishing the surf is bringing along a rod in the 8-to-10-weight range, and once the tide lowers and exposes the tide pools, heading out onto the rocks that add so much drama to the Central Coast’s beauty and fish for rockfish, cabezon, and lingcod.
Safety First
Safety is a big concern while fishing the largest single body of water on earth, and a few things are important to keep in mind while fishing the beaches and tide pools. It is never a bad idea to wear a personal floatation device, such as a life jacket, some of which are specifically designed for activities such as fly fishing and are a low-profile, relatively cheap insurance policy that gives you the peace of mind to stay focused on the task at hand. Never turn your back on the waves, though, because not paying attention leaves you vulnerable to being caught off guard, and a rogue wave could throw you off balance and knock you over.
There’s safety in numbers, and it’s a good idea not to fish alone. Always stay within sight of others, and pay attention to the tides. Some beaches and rocky outcroppings may be accessible only during low tide, and once the tide starts rolling in, you do not want to be stuck out there.
The Surf
I view the surf zone as the Central Coast equivalent of trout fishing: you use lighter gear and smaller flies than for bass and other local species. Surfperch come in many shapes and sizes. On the Central Coast, you’re most likely to run into barred surfperch, but we get the occasional walleye perch, which have comparatively huge eyes. As you go farther north on the coast, redtail perch become the main species, with some overlap with the barred surfperch. Most of these fish don’t get any bigger than two to three pounds, with the world record barred surfperch topping out at just over four pounds, caught down in Ventura. The previous record came from Morro Bay — a perch of just over four pounds, as well — but any fish over two pounds is a trophy.
Each beach has its own charms. Part of the fun of fishing the surf is finding little beaches and discovering what works at each one. Driving down the coast, an angler could fish five different beaches, each needing a slight alteration in technique to have success. Some need heavier flies, and others need light, realistic imitations. Some are shallow, with little structure, and need more delicate presentations, while others are steep and rough, requiring heavier lines and shorter casts. As with any fishery, matching the hatch and reading the water is of the utmost importance, and sand crabs (also known as mole crabs) are the staple of the surfperch’s diet, so when you arrive at a new beach, take some time to check the surf line to see what the average size of the sand crabs is. Also, sometimes, the crabs are darker on certain beaches and lighter on others. Being able to adapt to different conditions and match the hatch is critical to consistent success in the ever-changing environment of the surf.
What seems to be most daunting about the surf when people are just starting to fish from the beach is reading the water, since there’s a lot of it, to begin with, and the structure is completely different from what they’ve seen in their trout adventures. However, the easiest way I have found to describe reading the surf is to view it as a stream running parallel to the shore, with holes where there are deeper drop-offs and areas between holes that act like riffles. It pays to walk the beaches at low tide to get an idea of the structure that will be there when the tide comes in. Just a subtle change in contour of the sand can affect the current, and once the tide rolls in, the subtle changes and drop-offs are where the perch will come and feed, just as a rock or a ledge might determine where a trout will sit and feed. In the surf, however, there are no holding lies — everything is on the move. The fish are moving in and out of the shallows as the swells roll in and out, and almost every day, the structure of the beach changes slightly or drastically, so you’re fishing new water every day. That’s another thing that makes fishing the surf fun: you have to figure it out on a daily basis, even relearning the same stretch of beach every time you go out.
As I said, the main food source for surfperch are the abundant sand crabs, which you can find by the thousands buried in the surf-zone sand, often in big beds in skinny water. To experience how prolific these crabs are and to locate their beds, try walking into the surf barefoot. Once you step on one of these beds, you’ll feel the little critters popping out of the sand all over the place, and you’ll get the general idea of how the crabs operate. They hide in the sand until a wave floods the area, then they pop out and feed. This is when the surfperch move in and pick them off. Sometimes there are so many of the little buggers that on every cast, you’re picking one off the fly. When that happens, move a little to the side and see if you can fish the edges of the sand crab beds. Often, you’ll stop hooking crabs and start hooking fish.
The best time of day to fish the beach zone is generally two hours before the high tide and two hours after. I have also had good success in the two hours before and after a low tide, but in general, the high tide seems to fish better. Tide charts can be found in most outdoors stores along the coast or online via any number of websites. (My go-to site is www.tide-forecasts. com.) I try to pick days when these fishy periods align with sunrise or sunset, because the fish seem most comfortable feeding in low-light conditions, as most predators prefer to do. If you have no choice but to fish the high tide in the middle of the day, you can also have success, especially if it is a cloudy day, but overall, low-light scenarios provide more consistent success than bluebird skies. As always, however, if you psych yourself out of fishing because the conditions don’t seem to line up, you’ll never land a fish. The fish are caught from the beach, not from the couch.
One of the main things to keep in mind is to start by fishing shallow water, especially in the early morning. I don’t know how many times I’ve pulled perch out of barely ankle-deep water while working my fly through areas before I wade into them. When I’m fishing the surf, I’m rarely more than knee deep when wading, and the number one thing I see beginners do wrong is to wade out too deep and cast as far as they can. The fish are feeding in the churn of the surf, not outside it. When fishing the surf, you also need to fish between wave sets. When a wave passes over the line, it creates slack, and you’re less directly connected to the fly.
Winter is a great time to get out in the surf, because the mild climate of the Central Coast means our fisheries are fishable year-round. From December to February, the swells generally come up a bit with incoming storms, and the bigger swells create better-defined structure in the sand, which brings the perch up shallow and also makes the beach easy to read. The coldest months of the year can be some of the best for numbers of fish, as well as for bigger fish, because the bigger fish are starting to move up shallow for feeding and reproduction.

During the early spring, the big females start moving up shallow to spawn, and the months from February through April and May are your best bet for catching the largest fish of the year, because these larger perch are feeding before contributing their genes to future generations. Be careful when handling the females however, because surfperch are viviparous and give birth to live offspring, and with big females, if you squeeze them too hard, you will literally squeeze small fry out of them. You can identify the females because generally, they are the larger fish, 12 to 14 inches long. Also, males have an anal fin with a V-shaped indent, while the females have a long, whole anal fin. To release a female, reach your hand down into the surf and open up your palm, allowing the fish to sit gently in your hand as you unhook it. You can also slide a surfperch onto the sand to unhook it without handling it, because they are built to live in that environment, but where the water meets the sand is still a dynamic environment, so remain aware of your surroundings. The summer and fall can be productive as well. The surf fishes well year-round, but during the warmer months, the fish are generally smaller, and you will be dealing with what we refer to as “salad,” when dead kelp and seaweed start washing into the surf zone and can make the beaches tough to fish or even unfishable. Thankfully, these conditions mostly follow big wind systems and big changes in temperature and can clear up in a matter of days. One of the trade-offs of fishing the surf and one of the more attractive things about it is that as an angler, you’re completely at the mercy of the elements, and the ocean can be a moody beast to tackle.
The Gear
The surf zone, with its the crashing waves and endless churn of water, foam, sand, and wind, looks like something requiring heavy gear. That’s how I saw it the first time I started into the surf, and it was a bit off-putting to see people fishing the surf with the same rods I’d use for Atlantic salmon back home in Iceland. The fish in the surf generally weren’t pushing twenty pounds, though — a big fish as far as surfperch are concerned might break two pounds on a good day. So I realized that unless you’re targeting stripers, which are a viable target in the surf from the Monterey area north into Marin County, big Spey rods are overkill. Over the years, I’ve played with a variety of different setups and have settled on the ideal surfperch rig for the areas I’m mostly fishing, the Central Coast from the southern end of Big Sur on down, where the surf is not as steep as up north, and stripers are a rarity.
For single-handed rods, a 9-foot to 10-foot rod in the 6-weight to 8-weight range is ideal. The longer rod can be useful for the long casts sometimes required, but a 9-foot rod is more than enough to fish the surf effectively. A sink-tip or a full sinking line is necessary for the heavy currents of the beach zone to get the fly down into the strike zone fast and keep it there. I use a full sinking line on heavy surf days, but for calmer swells, a sink-tip line helps keep the running line out of the sand and increases your feel for what’s going on with the fly. Opt for an easy-casting running line, because you want to be able to pick up the line fast and make a long presentation with as little effort as necessary. As long as the leader turns over, accuracy is not the most important thing here. Just get the fly in the zone and quickly get tight to it, otherwise you will miss takes. That said, my favorite rod for the surf is a Spey rod — not the kind of big Spey I used for salmon, but an 11-foot 3-weight trout Spey, which is equivalent to about a 6-weight or 7-weight single-handed rod. Depending on the size of the flies I am using, I cast a 240-grain Scandi-style intermediate head with a 10-foot, 7 inches-per-second sink rate polyleader or a 250-grain Skagit intermediate line with 10 feet of T-8 tungsten head. The Scandi is better on calmer days with lighter flies, and the Skagit works best for heavier flies and bigger swells. This setup allows you to reach longer distances with minimal effort by Spey casting in the surf, which conveniently also makes it so you don’t have to worry about hooking people walking their dogs on the back cast.
As far as leader setups go, I like to keep it short and simple — a straight piece of 15-to-20-pound mono, 3 or 4 feet long, is all you need off of the line’s tip. Surfperch are opportunistic feeders and not leader shy.
Flies for surfperch are generally simple, with the main factors being durability, profile, and orange, because above all else, flies for surf perch should contain something orange, which seems generally to match up with the egg pouches that sand crabs carry under their shells. Orange seems to be the biggest trigger point that makes a perch commit to eating the fly. Otherwise, you just want the fly to have a bit of weight, usually in the form of cone heads or dumbbell eyes. I make the body in a general profile of a sand crab, with a gray faux fur back to get the profile of a shell, and add some sort of leggy material such as rubber legs or flashy Palmer Chenille. (See the next page for a recipe.)
Exact imitation seems less important than just getting the basic profile, color, and weight right, because these fish will often grab anything that looks like food. But exceptions do apply, such as when there is hardly any swell and ultraclear water, which is when the perch get picky and will take only more realistic flies. I’ve even had times when a heavy fly would not get bit, but once I switched to one with a slower sink rate, I caught quite a few fish just in the first few strips after the fly landed, indicating that they were taking it before it hit bottom, and bottom contact seemed to put them off. As with any fishery, there are no set rules. Just make sure to have a variety of flies and pay attention to what the fish respond to each day.
Actually, there is one firm rule: always rinse your gear off thoroughly after fishing in salt water. The salinity will destroy your gear, especially metallic things.
Tide Pools
Once the tide goes out and exposes the rocky structure jutting into the ocean, it’s time to grab the heavy rods, sinking lines, octopus and sculpin patterns, and get to work chasing rockfish, cabezon, and lingcod. The tide pools of California’s Central Coast are an underutilized treasure overlooked by fly fishers for seemingly obvious reasons: they’re a harsh landscape that doesn’t appear fly I started fishing the coast around Morro Bay when I was in college at Cal Poly. My friends would fish with bait in the surf during the high tide, and then at low tide, they’d pull out heavy swimbait rods, lead heads, and big plastics and hit the tide pools in shallow water and catch rockfish. Watching these guys fish, I realized this was easy enough to accomplish using fly gear, because these fish were in surprisingly shallow water, often just a foot or two deep, and tucked tight into rocky structure.
The main targets in the tidal areas are grass rockfish, olive rockfish, and cabezon, all of which are ambush predators, and fishing for them has a lot in common with largemouth bass fishing. In fact, many of the flies I use to chase these fish are similar to freshwater bass flies, just tied with heavier heads, such as Sculpin Helmets, heavy dumbbell eyes, and Fish Skull Baitfish Heads. The main forage for these fish are smaller octopuses, crabs, and sculpins living in the rocky tide pools, but as in the surf, exact imitations don’t seem to matter as much as having a bright, attention-grabbing f fly that is in the right place at the right time.
Most of these areas have heavy currents, and it’s paramount to get the fly down fast and keep it there, which requires a heavy fly, as well as a full sinking line to keep the fly in the strike zone through the retrieve. You want a frontloaded line that lets you load the rod at close range, because most of the casts are short, and you rarely cast past the head of the line. Choose the fastest sink rate you can, but any line of 7 inches per second or more is perfect for this kind of fishing.
As far as rods go, a stout 8-weight to 10-weight rod is able to cast both the flies and lines needed while also putting the brakes on a hot fish in heavy structure. Once a fish is hooked, it’s a bad idea to let it run. Picture a largemouth bass in woody structure, only this time, you’ve got ocean currents to contend with and hard rocks that will slice apart your fly line if it wraps around them — I’ve learned that the hard way.
For reels, you just need something that won’t fall apart in the salt, because taking the time to put these fish on the reel is almost guaranteed to give the fish time to wrap your line, leader, and dreams around any rock in a 50-foot radius. Instead, fight these fish much as you would a bass: make sure to stay tight, don’t let them run, and be keenly aware of the rocks and kelp around you, steering them into a clear area where you can land them.
The best time to fish the tide pools is during low tide, because it exposes them, but once a month, minus tides, which are extralow tides, expose even more areas. Minus tides allow you to reach the water at the edges of the rocky outcroppings, areas that get more current and are usually underwater for most of the month. It’s during minus tides that I have had the best success with larger fish, and sometimes I even have had encounters with very large lingcod.
The tide pools fish well year-round, with the standout time being from December through June, because there seem to be more fish in accessible waters during that period. Grass rockfish and olive rockfish live in these shallow areas year-round, but during the spring, you will find everything from cabezon to rainbow perch and lingcod.

Starting in the winter, right around mid-December, lingcod move into the shallows of the tide pools and become accessible to a shorebound fly angler. On the Central Coast, they seem to be the California equivalent of a musky. These large, crocodile-shaped, toothy fish are rare to see in the tide pools, but occasionally, you’ ll get follows from them on very large (10-to-12-inch) flies, and even more rarely, you’ ll hook one of these beasts in the shallows. There are few things more exciting — and terrifying — than a three-foot-long lingcod in just a foot or two of water appearing out of a mushroom-shaped rock, intent on destroying your fly. If heading out to chase these fish, use heavy 10-weight to 12-weight rods, full sinking lines, and either 100-pound-test fluorocarbon as a bite tippet or a wire leader like those used for pike and muskies. Flies should be big to get their attention — large Beast flies, big Double Deceivers, or anything imitating a squid or an octopus. If you spend any time in the tide pools during a minus tide, you’ll run into more than a few octopuses, and the smaller ones are a favorite snack of the fish that live in these areas.
While fishing the tide pools is fun, dynamic, and exciting, it is important to keep in mind that these areas are inherently dangerous. As when fishing the surf, always bring a buddy for safety reasons, and never, ever turn your back to the waves. While often it seems like the waves are far away, they can quickly wash over you and knock you off your feet, because the rocks are mostly slippery and covered with seaweed and don’t provide great footing. My friends and I keep bells in our packs when fishing tide pools. In the case we slip or get stuck, we ring the bell, alerting the others that we need help. Always stay within sight of others, pay attention to the tides, and don’t get caught out on a reef when the tide rolls in. As long as you keep these safety precautions in mind, fly fishing in the Central California surf and the rocky tidal zone is a great way to fish in some of the most beautiful areas in the world. From Monterey down through Big Sur and all the way down to Morro Bay, you’ll find some awesome fishing, set in places where most people only dream of visiting. It’s not uncommon during the winter to find yourself wading through tide pools and then looking up into the mountains of Big Sur to see snow on the top of the peaks. It’s pretty magical.
Central Coast Resources
Central Coast Fly Fishing. Geoff at Central Coast Fly Fishing has all the gear and information you’ll need for fly fishing this region, and if you’re lucky, you might be able to snag some toffee made by the shop owner himself. Central Coast Fly Fishing, 3650 The Barnyard, Suite D-23, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA 93923. Phone: (805) 927-2035; web, centralcoastflyfishing.com.
San Simeon Creek Campground. The San Simeon Creek Campground at the Hearst San Simeon State Park is a nice campground located just north of Cambria on Highway 1 on the southern end of Big Sur, right in the middle of some great surf and tide-pool fishing. San Simeon Creek Campground, 500 San Simeon–Monterey Creek Road, Cambria, CA 93428. Phone: (805) 927-2035; web, https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=590.
Dagur Gudmundsson Fly Fishing Guide. Located in San Luis Obispo, I provide guiding services for the south Central Coast surf zone from Big Sur to Santa Maria and on lakes and rivers within the region. Phone: (831) 233-9577; web: dagurflyfishing.com.
— Dagur Gudmundsson
Mohawk Crab

Hook: TMC 811S, size 4, or equivalent saltwater hook
Head: Orange brass cone
Thread: Veevus GSP 100 denier
Tail: Orange dubbing. Synthetics work best, because they last longer when sandblasted in the surf zone.
Back: Gray synthetic rabbit “Wabbit” Zonker strip. Again, synthetic is best.
Body: Palmer Chenille, palmered through the back
— Dagur Gudmundsson