Calico bass live along the inshore Central California coastline from Point Conceptión down to the southern west coast of Magdalena Bay on the Baja Peninsula. These beautiful, checkerboard-patterned game fish are always eager to eat a properly presented fly. They inhabit water depths from 3 to 150 feet and live in and around structure-rich areas such as rock piles and kelp forests. The average specimen is in the 2-to-3-pound range. A trophy calico would be any fish over 6 pounds. The ultimate prize for any seasoned calico bass angler, whether on conventional, spinning, or fly gear, is a calico bass of 10 pounds or more. It’s the female bass that tend to be the biggest, so let’s call any such behemoth dressed in an oversized checkered coat “Big Bertha.”
The largest recorded International Game Fish Association all-tackle record was a 14-pound, 7-ounce calico landed by Thomas Murphy on October 2, 1993, out of Newport Beach. Murphy landed his Big Bertha on a Pacific mackerel using 30-pound-test line. Although there have been quite a few Big Berthas landed by spin fishers and conventional-gear anglers, one has never been recorded on a fly. The largest recorded IGFA fly-caught calico is an 8.3-pound bass landed on a 20-pound tippet by my good friend and fishing buddy Dr. John Whitaker. John landed this fish from a float tube in 12 feet of water using a bronze-colored streamer pattern that resembles a lizardfish or small brown baitfish common around the kelp. That was quite a feat for a fly-rod angler.
What most fly anglers fail to realize is that the difference between a 6-pound fish and an 8-pound fish is not just two pounds. It is like the Richter scale for earthquakes. Each pound seems equivalent to 10 times the previous pound. Many anglers will attest that a 7-pound fish pulls 10 times harder than a 6-pounder. When I think of the possibility of a landing a 10-pound calico on fly gear, it boggles my mind.
There are reasons why a Big Bertha hasn’t been landed on the fly rod yet. It’s not an easy task on the long rod. The structure that calicos usually prefer can be quite nasty and hard to target with a fly. Bertha may live under submerged elephant-sized rocks, in thick, shallow eel grass, or suspended off inshore buoy lines. They feel safe there, and these areas allow them to ambush their prey. And calico bass are also commonly referred to as “kelp bass” for a reason. They like to suspend under large kelp stringers, where they can be perfectly camouflaged, but this, too, is a tough place to deliver a fly. So although calicos can be caught on foot from the ends of jetties and from rocky beaches, the best opportunities to catch calicos, especially when seeking a Big Bertha, are from fly-friendly skiffs with low side rails and armed with quiet trolling motors. A trolling motor is a great luxury to have. It can keep you in position, it makes very little noise, and it can get you out of trouble in a hurry if need be. On top of all that, for a shot at trophy fish, you need to fish in low light — the very early morning, predawn, or in the middle of the night. Big fish hide during the day and feed at night, when they feel comfortable and safe, and the same place you fish during the day can be an entirely different fishery at night, when larger fish come out to play. So there are obstacles that need to be overcome for flyrodders on a quest for a Big Bertha. Can it be done? Yep, I think so, given the right circumstances and an assist from Lady Luck.
Tackle, Flies, and Leaders
You will not land Big Bertha with a 6-weight fly rod. I would strongly suggest fishing a 10-weight, minimum, for the same reason you wouldn’t walk into a gunfight with a butter knife. You need to have the right equipment to get the job done. A 10-weight will give you the confidence, leverage, and power to stop Bertha. When she eats your fly, things are going to happen very fast. Don’t even think about getting her on the reel. Picture a tug-of-war with either side willing to make the next move. This is exciting stuff, and if you lose ground, you lose. Fighting Bertha from a boat off a jetty wall is like walking into the ring with Iron Mike Tyson. The whole round could be over in the first 10 seconds. You are either going to turn her head or she is going to break you off.
The most important factor to landing a Big Bertha is not to give her any slack. You must hold your ground, or the game is over. After she eats the fly, she will immediately turn to go back inside her safe lie. If you don’t stop her initially, you won’t stop her at all.
Immediately after seeing a big strike and heavy bend in the fly rod, my buddy Capt. Vaughn Podmore of SaltyFly Charters likes to put his boat into reverse and back off the break wall to eliminate any slack and try to pull and turn the fish toward deeper water, where his clients have a better shot of landing a big fish. As Vaughn states, “I tell my clients two things are going to be given: the water is wet and if you do as I say, you might land that fish of a lifetime.”
There’s no luxury of thinking you will get Big Bertha on the reel. You must clamp down on the line with your rod hand and hold on as tight as you can. If the line does jump out of your hand and she turns and gets in the rocks, don’t fret — there’s still a slim chance of landing her by feeding line back without any tension. She might settle down, get a second wind, and swim out of her hole, allowing you to continue the battle. With Lady Luck on your side, this may happen, but don’t rely on this tactic. Big Bertha doesn’t like to lose.
We typically use a 300-to-350-grain sinking shooting head system of 27 feet of T-11 or T-14 head attached to 100 feet of intermediate running line. Thinner running lines will get your fly down faster, but could be hard to hold onto when a big fish decides to dine and dash. Most sinking heads today are integrated with a running line, but if you plan to make a custom shooting head, .030-inch diameter intermediate running lines are good choices. A standard big-fish leader setup would be to use a straight 6-foot length of 20-pound fluorocarbon leader. Your weighted fly is tied to a small section of bite or shock tippet of 30-pound or 40-pound fluorocarbon. Your fly is tied on with a Nonslip Mono Loop. Having a stand-up line management system such as a stripping bucket is a good idea to keep loose coils of line off the deck of the boat, especially at night. And take a couple of rigged rods in case you break off a fly or leader; also bring pretied leaders ready to go. At night, tying knots is always harder. Just loop-to-loop them onto your fly line.
Food and Flies
A calico’s diet consists of various food sources, including bottom-dwelling crabs, baby lobsters, sculpins, shrimp, señorita fish, lizardfish, octopi, and many types of schooling baitfish, including sardines, anchovies, and mackerel. Try to simulate the most prevalent food source. Whether tying heavily weighted sculpin flies or Deceiver-style baitfish patterns, it is a good idea to use 40-pound or 60-pound hard Mason weed guards to help your flies swim through kelp stringers and over rocks and snarls. Remember, if you aren’t losing flies, you aren’t fishing in the right place, so bring a bunch of flies.
Flies of choice for fishing jetties at night are big and small sculpin or buggy crustacean patterns. These flies go deep, push water, and have lots of movement when allowed to sit still. Sculpin-style flies are popular and can be easily created using the Flymen Fishing Company’s popular molded sculpin heads in small or medium sizes. Tie these on a size 1 or 2 Gamakatsu B10 Stinger or Mustad Big Game hook.
The FFC sculpin heads come in brown, black, or silver. Many fly anglers also have adopted the powder-coating method common on conventional-tackle jigs to color their sculpin heads. You can heat and dip these sculpin heads in powder-coat powder using a piece of wire inside the heads. This method results in a smooth and durable even finish. Add stick-on eyes and hit them with a coat of clear epoxy and they are bombproof. An orange sculpin-head fly tied in brown with an orange rabbit tail is a go-to combination. Yellow, white, and brown or copper powder-coated sculpin heads are also good color choices. Sculpin flies can be articulated for length and movement. Tail sections can be made of natural or synthetic materials, with Sili Legs for additional movement.
All these flies should ride hook up, Clouser style, and have a stiff weed guard. The midsection of the sculpins can be made with hackles, deer hair, or EP Brush spiraled toward the eye. A bulky midsection helps keep the softer rabbit or longer tail sections from fouling and will push water, making irresistible tail vibrations. You can also add rattles for night fishing. Make sure you leave enough room prior to inserting the sculpin head over the hook eye for your weed guard.
When casting a sculpin fly at a jetty wall, don’t be afraid to throw it right into the tight pockets and allow the fly to fall slowly, then slowly strip it to maintain tension and contact. There will be times the fish will eat the fly without a strip. Vary your retrieves. Keep the fly on the fall, walking it down the staircase slope of the jetty. Bass love to come over to a fly that’s standing still and kill it. Often the fly will get eaten on the sink or drop, so be prepared for a thump. Sometimes it might be a violent strike, and sometimes you may just think that the fly is stuck. Strip strike anyway — it could be a fish that ate and turned before you felt it.
When fishing around kelp forests, many weedless baitfish-style patterns work well, including Clousers and Deceivers in various sizes and colors. Vary your stripping cadence. Sometimes big fish will strike as a reaction to movement, so try stripping as fast as you can — it will sometimes get them going. When fishing around kelp stringers, look for open lanes in the stringers where you can cast your fly, or cast to the edges of thick kelp forests to avoid getting hung up.
Techniques
Conventional-tackle anglers have certain advantages over flyrodders, and as fly anglers we need to understand the limitations of our system to be successful. If you plan on giving this style of fly fishing a whirl, especially at night, I would suggest targeting your local marina jetties and breakwater walls first. These areas are often easily accessible to fly anglers with boats. These areas tend to hold large fish and are fairly safe, especially the inside sections. They are simple to fish efficiently. Your best bet is to cover shallow areas up to 30 feet deep. Most big fish like shallow water, especially in areas difficult to access by boat or by land. Subsurface underwater “boiler” rocks, where swells break over rocks at or just below the surface, are great places to target Big Berthas, but these areas can be dangerous and have limitations for the fly fisher. I suggest fly fishing them on extremely calm days and in the daylight.
The conventional-tackle guys have an advantage in these areas, because they can stay far back out of danger of breaking waves and cast from a mile away with thin 60-pound-test braided lines. Their braided lines have no stretch and can easily cut through kelp, and their hook sets are immediate, with zero stretch. Stretch is inherent in the system we fly fishers use, and we can cast efficiently only from 30 to 100 feet, so we need to be right on top of these boilers to keep our flies in the zone. This can easily put you in harm’s way, so always watch the incoming wave sets. It is best to buddy-fish these areas, with one person on the running engine, ready to bolt if a big wave set is spotted.
We can’t fish as deep as conventional-tackle guys, either, or fish vertically, the way they can. They can drop down right on top of fish with heavy gear, but we have to figure out current and drift and use heavy sinking lines, heavily weighted flies, and short fluorocarbon leaders to stay in the strike zone. Knowing your limitations and keeping safe first will allow you to take your best shots.
Tides and Moon Cycles
Fish will eat on all tides, but big tides such as full-moon or new-moon tides are good times to concentrate your efforts. Most fish like current or moving water to put them on the chew. Baitfish and crabs can’t swim against the current and are at the mercy of where the currents take them. When fishing rock walls on big tides, I like to fish the moving incoming to high and then the outgoing flow off the high. I prefer new-moon phases because the darker the night, the more comfortable the bigger fish are. That doesn’t mean you can’t catch big fish in the gray light of early morning or late in the afternoon or in sloppy weather. And big fish are big because they are smart. They do not like to expend more energy than necessary. So sometimes the biggest fish will leave the comfort of their holes and move around just before slack tide, when the current slows down.
As far as water temperatures go, if there is a consistent weather pattern over a few days, with no abrupt changes in temperature, the bass will eat. When the temperatures move abruptly, they get put down and suffer lockjaw. When water temperatures hit the high 60s, the fish start to retreat to the bottom and suspend where they don’t have to fight the big currents to feed near the surface.
Catch and Release
Releasing these big fish is very important, because they grow at a such slow rate. A 12-inch fish can be 5 years old, while an 18-inch fish can be around 10 years old. The 14.7-pound fish that Thomas Murphy landed off Newport in 1995 was estimated to be 27 years old. There was a 9.5-pound fish landed off San Clemente Island in 1993 that was estimated to be 34 years old.
Night-Fishing Tips: Safety First
It’s a good idea to get to your fishing destination prior to sunset, so you can acclimate yourself to your surroundings before dark. Prior to starting your fishing session, this will allow you to take into account which way the tide, wind, and current will be pushing your boat. Always keep a safe distance between the boat and the jetty. It’s better to make long casts and be safe than to try to be hero and find yourself in trouble. When you are tight to structure, such as a jetty, and there is a swell, always keep your engine running, especially if you don’t have the luxury of a trolling motor to maintain a safe distance from the rocks. This will allow you to gun it and get out fast if a rogue wave comes your way. It is always smart to fish with a buddy and have one angler cast while the other is working the engine and keeping track of the waves.
Wear an inflatable stand-up-paddler vest and carry an extra waterproof flashlight. Let friends and loved ones know your night’s game plan and what time you expect to return. Keep your phone and car keys in a watertight bag.
I like to wear a pair of cheap safety glasses for eye protection and a headlamp to see when I need to change a fly or move around. Make sure your headlamp isn’t too bright. If your headlamp doesn’t have a red-light mode, a good option is to color your lens with a red Sharpie. It’s an old night surf-fishing trick I learned back East.
For a Good Time . . .
Big Bertha lives in a tough neighborhood that wreaks havoc on fly tackle. It’s her world, and we are just visitors. But some night, it’s possible that some flyrodder will make her acquaintance. I’m trying. You should, too.
