Mike Ward proudly lands his first bean on fly! Congratulations Mikey! 2012 © photos by Al Quattrocchi
July 4th, 2012
Well after my last dismal post, we decided to make a move and fish south of location X. I had had reports that there were some fish moving around. In fact, my buddy Jim had hooked three and landed two a few weeks prior in the same area. He sight-fished all three, watching the corbina chase down the fly, one even took the pink merkin on the drop. I got out a day after and saw fish everywhere but couldn’t get them to eat. That’s corbina fishing! The problem was that there was awesome am sunshine a month ago and now we had the dreaded june gloom to contend with. On a positive note, we had perfect minus low tides which make for good sighting in low light conditions. Well we moved the troops south on July 4th and invited some of our buddies to give this area a shot. This minus low is one of my favorite tides to fish this time of year and based on the last six or seven years has proven to produce many corbina on flies for me and many of my fishing pals. It was game on! The fish were right where we thought they were going to be, staging in each bucket. Mike positioned himself over a nice looking piece of water and within a half of an hour got things started by sticking a beautiful fat corbina, that took off like a bat out of hell. This was a real special fish for Mike, he had been fly fishing with me for almost three seasons and hadn’t landed a bean on fly. He joined an elite group and I was really proud of him for not getting frustrated and staying with it. Mike’s bean was taken on a get merkin. I just had a hunch. I was denied on pink for some reason so I went with smaller grey merkin and immediately got hooked up and landed bean numero dos for the morning. Then Zino walked up and we switched his fly out to a grey merkin and soon after he had bean three on the beach. Two other friends Jeff and Michelle later joined us. They were fishing just south of us. I asked Jeff and Michelle if they had any luck. The only saw a few fish and had a few shots. I told Jeff to move up the beach just north of us and look around, there were quite a few fish. Soon after Jeff’s rod had a bend in it and he connected with bean number four for the morning, he was using a light pink merkin. I would say that was a decent session, 4 corbina landed on flies in a couple of hours. I know to the newbies out there four fish doesn’t sound amazing but corbina are perhaps one, if not the hardest fish to take on a fly in the surf. They will bitch slap the best fisherman, period!
Qman holding a July fourth bean. photo by Zino Nakasuji
July 5th, 2012
now the game was on! they could run but the couldn’t hide. I could hardly sleep the night before. Got to the beach early, about 5:30am, now understanding where these fish were staging. I hit the sand in the early grey light and watched the structure with a keen eye. I began to fire some long casts from way back on the sand into the edges of the holes after seeing a few fish working the edge of the trough. I immediately connected with a big fish that gobbled the grey merkin and taking me immediately into my backing. I like to use 12 pound test (they are not leader shy in the surf) so I knew I could put the wood to him. I landed him a few minutes later. About a half hour later I moved to another hole and saw a group working just on the edge of the trough. I measured my cast and stripped the fly though their kitchen, bam, the water exploded with three beans going one direction and my bean moving straight out. I let him run, got my line on the reel and began to work him into the shallow flat on the edge of the trough. Bean two was in the books. I ended up leaving the beach just shy of 8am when the water started to fill the beach in and cover the exposed crab beds, making seeing fish nearly impossible. My other buddy Jim had a great morning as well, even though he didn’t land a fish, he got four fish to eat the fly, having all four pop off and spit the fly. That to me is still a rewarding effort . These fish will drive you nuts but they are awesome, challenging, humbling and will get you crazy, but that is why we keep trying to push the curve.
happy hunting, get out there, the games have begun….
flies, sand & surf 