San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

We have been fishing once or twice almost every week since the new year from National City to the south. Fishing has generally been pretty good for a spotties along with a few barracuda, mackerel, corvina, halibut, smelt, and bonefish.

Some days have be great with 2 dozen+ fish each for a four hour session with some other days less than a dozen fish each. Best days have been when we can find concentrations of small baitfish. Catching has been a bit more up and down since the storms started rolling in at the end of January. There have been some breezy days and some with calm conditions that would be comfortable for SUP users.

Oddly, on many mornings, the first couple of hours was best regardless of whether the tide was incoming, outgoing, or slack, regardless of cloud cover. On days with bluebird skies the bite has slowed in the shallow water (<8ft) as expected, but on cloudy days the catching in shallows has been good.

Just about any fly has worked though slim baitfish patterns have done better when there is a lot of small baitfish present.

Have mostly been using sinking lines with sink rates of between 3 and 6 inches per second. Much of the time it has been too breezy to use intermediate lines, or if calm, there were no biting fish in the shallower water where intermediate lines are most effective.

For the last month I have been using and old 8' 5wt rod built on a J. Kennedy Fisher glass blank by the late Bill Stroud. It has been a hoot to fish with and even a 10" bass will bend it into the grip during the fight. I have to remember to execute a good strip strike since the rod is too soft to set by swinging the rod, which is poor practice anyway. Sure, the rod is more suited to dry fly fishing for trout, but it is still fun and with a 150 grain sinking line handles small weighted flies just fine.

Fish Forage

Beautiful bone. The J. Kennedy Fisher is fiberglass? Bigger fish must be a handful on that 5 wt, but also a blast!

Rattus wrote: Mon Feb 26, 2024 10:03 pm Beautiful bone. The J. Kennedy Fisher is fiberglass? Bigger fish must be a handful on that 5 wt, but also a blast!

Yes, fiberglass. It is a fun rod to fish but has a pretty slow action - slower than some of my bamboo rods. Casting stroke needs to be adjusted accordingly and it can be a challenge with a sinking line and weighted fly when it gets windy. Even in calm conditions my casting distance is shorter than with my graphite rods. But while distance is nice in the bay since that keeps the fly in the water longer, it is not a requirement. The rod is perfect for smelt. Fun enough for everything else.

i was finding fish pretty well around small bait schools as well but the schools seem to have moved out from where i was fishing recently. Fingers crossed im back out there soon.

I tied , I mean stuck a few of these up recently but stopped because of difficulty of working with the chocklett’s gummy material. This is one of his gummy minnow patterns that I heard is very popular back east for small mouth and stripers on the fly. Chocklett’s game changer fly book describes how to make this fly so I gave it a go… looks like I should try it in the bay sometime!

Joshmo62 wrote: Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:36 pm I tied , I mean stuck a few of these up recently but stopped because of difficulty of working with the chocklett’s gummy material. This is one of his gummy minnow patterns that I heard is very popular back east for small mouth and stripers on the fly. Chocklett’s game changer fly book describes how to make this fly so I gave it a go… looks like I should try it in the bay sometime!

That would probably work when the fish are feeding on small bait. Mackerel will probably eat it any time. It may work other times too.

I have had fits working with gummy materials. I have a tremor in my hands that makes it even more of a challenge. So I gave up.