The California surf remains an unknown frontier for most fly fishers, although a number of pioneers have been flinging their lines into the churn for a few decades now. As an untapped resource, the big pluses are that the ocean is no more distant than a hop and a skip for many of us and that it contains a lot of fish, both in number and variety.
The minuses, if you want to think of them that way, are that we’re still figuring out how best to fish it with fly gear and that the ocean is, well, the ocean. As a friend of mine would say, we’re talking combat fly fishing. You make your cast, and from then on, you keep an eye on the sea as well as on your line.
If you get a hit from a fish, you’ll know it. If you get dunked, you’ll know that, too.
I had been trying to figure out how to fly fish Northern California’s surf zone for about two years, experimenting and learning as I went along. I collected the appropriate tackle, I read articles by the experts, and I devoted roughly eighty hours to flogging the waves. The results were hardly worth writing about: one 10-inch rockfish, one 9-inch surfperch, and one jogger, on the back cast.
Despite this abysmal rate of return, the effort wasn’t wasted. The Pacific Ocean, after all, is a darned impressive and wild place to spend one’s time, even when the bluffs behind you are lined with multimillion-dollar homes. Plus, of course, there’s the aprés surf bit, which in Northern California might involve steamed clams, deep-fried smelt, and Bloody Marys and ice-cold beer. Reason enough to dig out the tide tables.
But it’s nice to have something to show for one’s efforts besides perhaps heartburn and a lurch. So, I decided to sign up for one of Ken Hanley’s surfperch classes. Another hit for the fly-fishing monkey on my back….
Five-thirty a.m. on a cold and foggy Saturday. Reg, Doc, and I are huddled together in a parking lot on the San Mateo County coast, coffee steaming into our faces, wondering what the devil we’re doing up at this pitchblack hour. A pair of headlights approaches, downshifts around the corner, and slides as if greased into a parking space across from us. Ken pops out of the truck. “I’m amazed! Most of my students are late!”
We try to chuckle, unsuccessfully.
Ken’s the sort of guy, though, whose enthusiasm is infectious. Imagine someone with a perpetual exclamation mark over his head, and you’ve pegged Hanley. He’s just the motivation we need at dawn.
Within minutes, the four of us are chatting up a storm, hurrying into our waders, gearing up as quickly as possible to ensure that not a minute is wasted. Then, as a hazy gray light adds perspective and a hint of color to the scenery around us, we hike off to the bluff that overlooks the ocean.
Ken has timed our excursion so that we arrive while the tide is at its lowest point. He points out places that likely will hold fish as the tide rises: the edges along beds of sea grass, channels through soon-to-be-submerged rocks, shelves against which fish will move. We try to take it all in, attempting with difficulty to draw some sort of correspondence with trout water. The Pacific thuds dully in front of us, demanding attention.
A trail down the bluff brings us to a narrow sand beach where we wade across to some rocks and begin casting into the unknown. A few minutes pass, and Doc calls out that he had a strike. Well, maybe not. We shift location, cast along dense thickets of eelgrass. Nothing. Ken notes that the sea lions aren’t feeding: a bad sign. We walk onto a sunken shelf and cast again, again, again. The ocean roars against the rocks to our rear; it’s darned hard to keep an eye on. But it focuses us as only the prospect of a tumble in the waves can do.
The casting is good practice, too, teaching us how easily our lines entwine with seaweed and rock. The fish, if they exist, ignore our offerings. The ocean thunders more loudly, tries to lift us off our feet. Ken whistles; we reel in, pick our way across the rocks, walk thankfully onto the known solidity of the beach. Running room.
We try a few more spots as the sea rises. Bait anglers are beginning to show up, grabbing the better holes for themselves. Ken whistles us together. “Well guys, we’re past the peak. I think we should call it a day.”
We agree, and agree to meet in Half Moon Bay for lunch (clam chowder and steam beer), then agree to meet again the next morning.
Dawn, but this time, we’re short Doc, who fell asleep during the opera the night before and, surprisingly, took it as a bad sign. Today, our objective is to fish a sandy beach, rather than a rocky shoreline. Exclamation marks appear above Ken’s head again as he moves us down the beach, showing us troughs and channels, summarizing the hydraulics that create holding water in what seems an aquatic Sahara.
Reg and I wade into the ocean, turning sideways so that the brunt of the surf hits us along our narrowest dimension. And hit we are, with spray and grit flying into our faces and down our jackets, sand sucking from beneath our feet. It’s intense, confusing, nothing like fishing a stream.
Reg casts into a hole in front of us, strips line quickly, casts once more, then yells, “I’ve hooked a fish!” I look over and see Reg’s rod bent deeply in an arc, throbbing to something with a lot more fight than a hunk of kelp.
At that moment, I feel a tap on my line, then a sharp tug, and I set the hook. “Fish on!” It uses the surf to its advantage, trying to lever its body with the undertow, but I muscle the thing in with my 8-weight. It’s a 10-inch surfperch, silver bright. Reg holds up his catch — 12 inches. These aren’t big fish — surfperch usually aren’t — but we grin, and Ken gives us both high fives. . . .
And I know then that I’ll be back.
This story ran in the first issue of California Fly Fisher, more than thirty years ago. We’re printing it again because while interest in fly fishing the Pacific surf zone has been growing over time, only a small percentage of us actually do it, an unexpected fact, given the ocean is within an hour’s drive of a large percentage of California’s fly fishers. Yes, it can be frustrating and even dangerous (never take your eyes off the waves, always wear a personal floatation device, and try to fish with others). But fishing the surf is exciting, challenging in a good way, and it takes place in an environment that’s wild in every sense of that word.
Although Ken Hanley no longer holds surf-zone classes, your local fly shop or the internet might be able to hook you up with a clinic or a guide if you’re seeking instruction or just want to experience this aspect of our sport.