Here are some weekend highlights from some of our fly fishing friends that were gracious enough to email me some pics…
Fourth of July corbina sight-casted and landed on a classic old school set up by Al Q. A Fenwick 8.6 ft, two piece 7 wt.fiberglass rod with an old 40s pfleuger click and pawl fly reel. I used a pink merkin, 12 foot leader with 8# tippet and the Rio Camolux intermediate fly line with 3% stretch. Photo by Al Quattrocchi
here’s a fun pic! a few corbina sighted at Blacks Beach in San Deigo. photo by Bernard Yin.
Nick Blixt comes really close to accomplishing his first faired corbina. Photo by Nick Blixt. The fish was chin hooked.
fu man choo! chin hook by Nick!
pretty early morning light. Photo of Al Q by Jon Nakano
awesome pic by Michael Schweit (FFF southwest Pres) of our fly fishing buddy Jon Nakano lining up a fish in the skinny.
John hooked and landed three and a quarter corbina on July 5th. Three were faired and landed and one he handed off to a little kid that reeled a little took hard when the fish decided to run and popped!
First sight cast bean by Chiaki Harami and a nice one Chiaki! photo by Chiaki Harami
A couple of notes: there’s a lot of guys having troubles hooking fish, out guessing themselves and switching flies, and getting frustrated. Me and Jon were talking about this over the weekend. well, listen up. this isn’t easy. I fish with the best corbina fly fisherman period and I learn every day. the one thing I can say is these fish do not always eat the fly so you have to really try to get as many quality shots as possible directly in front of their nose. They WILL eat if the fly is on their nose, unfortunately many new comers have a hard time getting the fly in the right location consistently. My advise; since it is really hard to get the fly on their nose with current, wave hydraulics, people walking by, etc. Don’t change flies…stick to using a merkin (pink is better for sight-fishing) , it works!!! That is one thing less you will have to think about is not trusting your fly. Trust this fly and worry more about casting accurately, this is the main reason many guys are not catching fish. You need to place a fly accurately at a moving target, this ups the game times ten! What I would do, is go out with your fly rod to the park or backyard and put a small dinner plate upside down at different distances, (use the same set up you take to the beach) then practice casting a hookless merkin at the dinner plates till you can make one cast and hit all of them. Play for beers with you friends, make it fun? the better you can judge distance and put a fly on a plate the more fun it is. this sight-fishing game becomes like shooting targets. stick with it, it will make you a better fly fisherman and you will be rewarded for the hard work! this next tide cycle will be awesome, so start practicing like right now! LOL
flies, sand & surf 
Great stuff, especially about practicing for accuracy! Peter
Great post Al! Barely into my second season pursuing these worthy critters, I am hardly qualified to comment here but would add that the angle of retrieve has much to do with them being interested in your offering as well.
Glenn, you make an excellent point, your retrieve must allow for the bug to move away from the corbina in a natural way. Front and side shots work well. Never move your fly directly at your fish like it is going to attack the corbina or cast whne the fish is sliding away from you. It pays not to cast until you can get the proper angle, even if that means back stepping or moving further down the beach. It is always good idea to take a few casts when you first arrive at the beach to see which way your fly is going to swing in the current and then compensate when you need that money shot…good stuff!
Hi Al, great post, thank you. What weight RIO camolux do you use on the fenwick? I have an old 7 wt fenwick eagle that I might setup. Good times! Also, you mentioned tide cycle. Do you mean the cycle where the swings from low to high tide (being better)?
Re: tide, I forgot to clarify when the swings are *larger* from low to high – is that best?
Ryan:
you can usu the Rio Aqualux clear intermediate or the Rio CamoLux WF7I, both will work great when there isn’t much side current and the fish are lit up in the troughs. We typically like to fish the incoming tides off the minus low, when the fish are anxious to eat. Timing these tides with sunshine betters your odds for seeing fish. Remember to stay as far back as you can without spooking them before you cast. Take deep breaths and image yourself casting in a bowl of jello, slow your casting stroke down! good luck!
🙂 You are the freeking man, Al. Thanks for the tips, love the blog.