Early bean report. I have to admit I was not optimistic about the state of water quality for this year’s fishing season, due to the fires and domoic acid levels, but Mother Nature can be resilient. There have been lots of dead sea birds, dolphins and sea lions washing up in the surf recently; its very sad. Today I witnessed a dead garibaldi on the beach, which was a first for me. With all of this going on, we are seeing a nice number of inshore halibut being caught right off the beach, which adds some hope.
So on a positive note, this week we began to see lots of sand crabs show up on our local beaches. There are some corbina beginning to move around in shallow too. Best to target these fish on fly during the minus low tides right now due to the larger surf we have had recently in the South Bay. The 62-degree water is still a little too cold for them to be kamikaze on the sand crab beds like we are accustomed to seeing during the warmer early summer months but never the less they have located the crab beds at low tide and a good presentation may get it done. Even as they begin to stage in the deeper troughs behind creating waves, blind casting likely looking areas adjacent to their exposed food source on low tides can produce this time of year. The fish in the photo was caught on a blind cast. When the weather and water temps stabilize for a few days even at 62 degrees right now, the fish will settle into a pattern and eat. Pretty soon the water will warm up and it will be game on. Those 67-68 early summer water temps usually signal in the official corbina season. Tight lines, but not TOO tight –Al Q
flies, sand & surf 