a bean football landed by southbay angler, john whitaker on a grey merkin. photo by john whitaker.
I am seeing a lot of great reports from our southland beaches this past week. many of the corbina patrol boys are tearing it up. our friend jon got four one morning (all sighted) and timmy got 2 per day on two outings last week. all of our fish are on the merkins, pink or grey in sizes 4s and 6s. yesterday we all went out for fathers day, there were six of us, the tide wasn’t the best, it was was a outgoing to the low, but after nine o clock, when she turned around, it started to heat up, our buddy james got one to eat, and paul (merkin-man) cronin had three on the reel landing one. I had one eat at my feet but had no angle to stick him so he unbuttoned, but it was still a really cool deal watching him track the fly almost to the waters edge before opening his mouth to kill the bug. the sight fishing was really good. even though I didn’t get one I had a lot of fun throwing many shots to fish, only to watch them turn towards the fly and refuse my offerings. it was the most fun you could have NOT catching one. LOL we saw lots of doubles, triples, even larger groups. All these fish were cruising the edges of a well defined trough, often retreating to a deep edge when spooked by waders or surfers. The month of June typically is a really good time to get fish on flies, they tend to be more grabby early in the season, and more finicky as we head towards summer…can’t wait for the next minus low tide cycle…
flies, sand & surf 
Awesome flies, awesome information – to the fly tying desk I go! Thank you Al and Randy.
– Kevin
Very nice photo there. Glad you see your wife has started a new business. Now maybe you can fish more.
Nice, caught one about 3# at El Porto yesterday, sadly, no camera at the time 😦
Al,
What could you describe your leader design for beans, e.g., tippet diameter, tapered leader of straight, leader/tippet length, etc.? When sight fishing for beans do you use a floating line, intermediate, sinking? Last time you I talked to you in the shop you preferred a single fly, no dropper, is that still the case?
Thanks,
JoeA.
Al,
I just found the answers to the questions I posed after exploring your site a little more (Andy Stillitano thread started last summer) so you can ignore my inquiry unless your leader design has changed significantly.
Thanks,
JoeA.
Straight twelve around 7 feet long is all we use in the surf!