Founding fathers of Corbina on da fly

[Jim Solomon]

Steve P. - Corbinamania at its best! I need another needle. Hey here is one for you - John Scott, my old superintendent, passed away this year. He was 89 years old. After the World War II he moved to Los Angeles. He used to tell me of the days when they would come down to the South Bay and net corbina for dinner. They fished for them as well, but not with a fly rod. Jimbo

[Shane Chung]

Steve,

That's a good note on the worm. Ken H. and I talked about how at the time there was a lot of guys not fishing a worm pattern in the surf. I had caught perch, YFC and corbinas on an Andy Burke V worm fly to try and copy the bloodworm and other small worms that I knew (thanks to Bio 102 Ecology / zoology) about that lived in our surf zone. I fished a brown/wine color V-worm. Now the popular version is the red worm fly that Jon and James tied up and posted in the archieves of this board.

As for the guys listed it was Cecil Gamble, Doug Uyematsu, Richard Jacobson, Mike Messina, Paul Alan(?), and Alan (Sorry I forgot your last name) and much later on these guy's coat tail it was JP for Jerrold Paul Shelton and Flificker Doug. They (Cecil, Rich, Alan, Doug and Paul) were the guys I knew who were fishing and playing with the long leader idea back in the mid 90's.

The length started out at 15' and grew to 22 / 24'. This was a seriously mean bitch to cast. 17' was the most I could do with some form of line control. These guys were all great casters. Some of them certified as master casters by the FFF. What they were doing was fishing the shore at an angle to the drop off. It was along this zone that the corbina's would cruise. They would intercept the corbina's path with their fly making the fly skip upwards and escaping away into the shallow water. This popping of the fly could only be done with a long leader since the v wake of the fly line would spook the big corbinas they were after. The action was to mimic an escaping ghost shrimp caught in no mans land. They did do a little bit of running along the beach, but no where as much as you guys up in LA. Esentially they would determine the feeding path the corbina was taking, get ahead of the fish, and place the fly. Then they would slowly pop the fly up the ledge. as the fish got closer the fly would get popped across the fish line of sight up onto the shallows. This would trigger a chase / eat mode in the corbina. Yes I saw a lot of big fish pictures early on, and I was told to keep quite about it pretty much until almost everyone knew about Belmont Shores. At the time they did not have to worry about me snaking their hole; since I was one of the guys struggling with the long leader.

I don't know exactly how, but I'm sure one of the original super long leader guys told someoone else, and he another until it was known by everyone at the Long Beach Casting Club. I know they got about three maybe four years of having Belmont Shores and this technique to themselves. after that I knew about almost anyone giving Belmont a shot to get big beans. By then (2000) we were selling a lot of mini clousers at Mike Scotts for Belmont Shores. It could be that it was Rich, Cecil and Doug who started the super long leader sight fishing for the corbinas; a technique really only for places like Belmont Shores.

Shane

[Steve P.]

Shane,
Thanks for the info.
Doug U. was a member of LBCC and said that he didn't know anyone
in the club fishing the surf (I assume the bay too) when he joined
in 1994. Rich was not a member as far as I know, maybe a Downey
Fly Fisher but he says he didn't know anyone doing this either.

By the way, Doug U. thinks the fishing in Alamitos Bay has degraded alot
since he started fishing there:

Doug says:

"One of the locals is doing a study he will submit to the Coastal Commission. He has interviewed me and we both agree that the City of Long Beach is largely at fault. Some of the homes on the sand spit have foundations that are at or below high tide level. The city builds sand berms on both sides of the peninsula to protect these homes. After tides recede they use tractors to push the imported sand into the water. On the surf side of the peninsula the practice probably has little long term effects since the waves and long shore currents move the sand down the beach pretty quickly. The same is not true for the bay on the calm side of the peninsula. The shallow clam beds and ghost shrimp burrows are buried on a regular basis after each very high tide. Bait collectors used to fill their buckets with ghost shrimp (limit is 50) in a few minutes. The guys I talk to now collect less than a dozen after using their pumps for over an hour.

I have really noticed a change in the fishery here. For many years, I expected to get 2 to 4 corbina each morning with the average size exceeding 20 inches and occasionally catching fish to 26 to 27 inches. During the past two years the size of the average corbina caught has dropped to about 12 or 14 inches and, except for a few freak days, the numbers caught has dropped drastically."

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

Hey Jim,

Is my obsession showing? If you can get an interview with your old
superintendent to get more of the history, you're a major maniac in my book - ha ha!

Thanks for the ideas for sources of info. LBCC started in 1925 so there should
be alot of history hidden there somewhere. Sounds like Wilderness
Fly Fishers go back a ways too. How about the Pasadena club? Someone mentioned that
Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and Sports Afield go back to near 1900 or
so - I had no idea. Don't know if there is a pile of any of these anywhere.

Another option is fly shops - the employees meet most of the fly fishers
in the area at some point or another - including the old timers with
all of the stories of the old days. Anybody know any really old fly shop
employees or owners?

Thanks,
Steve P.

[Steve P.]

Bill and Eileen Stroud would be the best ones to ask. We will see them today, (Friday).

I do remember that Nick caught corbina on a fly earlier than most anyone else.
Louie Zimm grew up in SD, always a fishing fanatic, and is a
past Prez of the SD Fly Fishers. He captained ships in the Scripps
Oceanography fleet but is now retired in his mid-50s. He can be found
almost every day out on SD Bay or the inshore waters in his boat
Bill and Eileen Stroud have owned Stroud Tackle since the 70s

Louie remembers:

"I talked to Bill [Stroud] on Friday [25 July 2008] and he thought Sam Nix might have caught a corbina in the surf, but he was not to sure.

I do remember that Nick caught corbina on a fly earlier than most anyone else.
My earliest personal memory of a fly caught corbina was Terry Baird in about 1988. I think my first was 1989. Sam Nix is a good candidate, I fished with him for Bonito when I was 14. Uhh.....about 1966.

I also caught mackeral off the SIO Pier on my old Wright and MaGill fibreglass fly rod about 1965.

Scott Sadil would also be a good one to ask. He just had an article in California Fly Fisher. I know he flyfished Black's Beach when he went to UCSD in the early eighties."

Louie recently told me about his corbina experience:

"One year when I didn't have a boat I fished Black's 70 days with fly rod and caught a total of 7 corbina. And I was proud of that!"

Note that Gary Bulla's July 2000 report says that Terry Baird was tying
flies for his bean quest, and apparently he didn't know anyone who
had caught a bean on the fly.

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

Craig Smith is one of the top SD fly fishing sharpies. He wrote a great article
about fly fishing for spotted, sand, and calico bass in SD Bay; it is available on Dan Blanton's website:
http://www.danblanton.com/baybassfly2.htm

Bill and Eileen Stroud have owned Stroud Tackle (a fly shop) near Mission
Bay since the 1970s. Bill has been Prez of the SD Fly Fishers 4 times, and
Eileen was the club fly tying instructor for many years.
SD Fly Fishers was previously SD Fly Fishermen Club that started
in 1963 and didn't admit women. The club rules were changed to
admit Eileen Stroud and the name changed to SD Fly Fishers (according
to Nix and SD Fly Fishers site)

Craig sent this to me in email last week:

"Bill Stroud told me that when he and Eileen came to San Diego in the '60s some people, probably a very small number, were flyfishing in the bays, estuaries, and surf. A lot of Navy personnel came through town during those years that brought their tackle from elsewhere, but where not deeply integrated into the local flyfishing groups. It would have been natural for some to try the saltwater. He also said that he recalled that some may have been doing this since the late '50s when the first coated lines came out. Bill specifically mentioned incidental bonefish catches, but as he is a couple of years short of 90, his memory on the specifics is not good and he did not recall specific names. It seems quite possible that corbina were taken on the fly in the '60s or earlier but it might be real difficult identify a specific individual or date. Bill used fly tackle on local charter boats for inshore stuff as well as small albacore."

Since SD has been a Navy town for a long time, it makes sense that
fly fishing techniques from all parts of the country came to SD via
the military.

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

The fly fishing adventures of Peter Syka and Scott Sadil in the 1980s
in Baja and La Jolla
are chronicled in Scott's book "Angling in Baja".
It turns out the Peter lives only a mile from me in SD

Peter emailed this:

"I regularly check out the Gary Bulla discussion board, and had to chuckle at the "first corbina-on-th-fly thread". Scott and I caught some in Baja on our trips down there in '84 through '90. I'd love to tell you that we got them sight fishing, but even as an angler, I'd like to keep some shred of integrity...No, we would get them casting likely spots, usually using Deceiver type patterns, the corbina showing up in the mix of yellowfin croaker, sand bass, calico bass, halibut, barracuda, yellowtail, corvina etc, that we used to have no shortage of fun with. I remember getting a huge one in Fall of '86 at Punta Abreojos, and once I got it onto the beach, being disappointed that it wasn't a white sea bass like the one that Scott had gotten that morning. That's how spoiled I was...boy those were the days.
There were some guys around the San Diego area before us. In 1987 I gave a slide show at the SD Fly Fishing Club about Baja Beach Flyfishing, and there was an old guy there who I recognized having talked to on Scripps Beach, a few years previously, casting a small steelhead-fly type pattern south of the pier. My take on him was that he was some Scripps emeritus type guy, getting some casts in before work. Until Scott and I started doing it, that was the only time I'd ever seen someone fly-casting in salt water. There was also a near-legendary guy named Sam Nix (I think), who was a local saltwater flyfisher, old, or maybe even dead by the 1980's when we got into the game. I don't know if he targeted corbina, but the few local saltwater fly-rodders I met in those days talked about him with reverance, and told me to try to track him down. I was never able to. I even think he wrote a book (I recall black and white photos of wading spin-anglers lifting gaffed dorado in waist deep water somewhere on the East Cape, as well as a brace of dead, bait caught Pacific Permit), but that may be another book, by another author.
I first connected with Gary about 8-9 years ago, when he sent me a batch of his prototype Gremmie flies, and had a streak of surf fishing success with perch, bass and corbina for a few years. If you ask me, Gary is the guy. As far as I'm concerned, everyone else just dabbled in it until he took it and ran with the flyfishing for corbina stuff."

Great stuff! Check out the book, it's a good read.

Peter and I decided that the emeritus guy was Dr. Bernie Fink, a retired
fisheries biologist and one of my fly fishing buddies, and that the
legendary guy was Sam Nix who we've shown did not catch any beans
up to the time of his book in 1973 at least. And we've shown earlier that Nick C.
caught beans earlier than Gary.

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

Michael Maloney - yep Michael "I don't fish, I just cast" Maloney
called me last week and I asked him about beans in history.

Michael is a master certified fly casting instructor. Michael now lives
in my old home town of Camarillo (home of Abel Reels) which
gave us something in common and got us talking about 3 years ago.
I have coordinated a couple of casting clinics for Michael down in SD
and we talk every few weeks.

Michael grew up in Oxnard and surfed year round as a kid.
(Later he surfed in tournaments, and did some surfing in Hawaii).
He started
going to Florida to fly fish for bonefish around the age of 10. In 1962-3
when he was 13-14,
he was often visiting his grandfather's house in Solimar, north of Ventura.
He had never seen anyone fly fish in the surf, but with
the urging of a friend of his grandfather's who was a conventional
fisherman, he tried fly fishing in the surf. He used leadcore line and
a Hardy rod, don't know the reel. He said that after dealing with winds
on the bonefish flats, casting leadcore was not a big deal.

(A couple of years ago, I asked Michael how he became such a
good fly caster. He said that he became obsessed with fly casting
when he was a young kid and he would cast for hours and hours in
his yard - some kids like me played pickup bball, baseball and
football - Michael instead spent hours casting by himself - that
explains alot - ha ha!. I asked him how he practices his fly casting
now - "I don't practice".)

He doesn't remember ever seeing a corbina while surfing or fishing,
and didn't know what they were back then.
He caught perch on the fly.

This account supports our idea that many people might have
fly fished the surf at one point or another in the 1960s and
maybe earlier just as a logical extension of having fly fished in other
places and habitats.

But as we've said,
finding the first is probably not important, having the first big
impact on others to start up the new sport is probably what we're
looking for.

Steve P.

[flymaker]

Steve P. I'm blown away by the outpouring of info/lore, your reporting skills and energy on this topic. This is the best thread I have ever read on local beach fishing. Thanks to Hip (Jon) for asking the original question and to you Steve for asking a beegillion more and sharing those answers.

Hey I once took Gary's surf FF school with Jay and Ken and they took us to the Spit to show us the ropes. "Keep the fly on the bottom" I was told. So I hauled in a nice fat Sea Cucumber. Who was the first to do that? Ha Ha..

Keep up the great work-all!

[paul]

Definitely second that. Thanks for pulling this all together Steve P!
I read a lot of material on fly fishing in general and it is pretty cool to read up on some local history for once.
Way cool to hear the tales of the guys blazing the trail early on.
Shoot...if you have more...keep it flowing.
-P

[Steve P.]

Hi guys. Thanks for the notes. I know I have been hogging the airwaves but
it's good to get this stuff down on "paper". (Phildo and others are
probably groaning - damn, don't encourage him, let's go fishing). Don't
worry, I'll
be out of stuff soon.

Frank and Bev Selby are the owners of His and Her Fly Shop in Costa Mesa.
Frank is a fly fishing addict of the first degree and I have talked alot with
him at shows, his shop, and on the phone. At the Fred Hall Show in
Del Mar between the casting pool and his huge booth, he gets the
showgoers whipped into a frenzy, crazy about fly fishing, and buying
things from his booth. We fished together with
newbies at Del Mar during the Fred Hall Show a few years ago. He nailed
me in the back with a honkin' orange/white halibut clouser and we couldn't find the fly.
I later found it snagged in my surf jacket. Did I mention that Frank
is an FFF certified casting instructor - ha ha! Frank
is definitely a character and his enthusiasm is addictive.

Frank grew up in SD and says that he visited Stroud Tackle quite a bit
and Bill helped him along. As a little kid, if Frank didn't have any money
with him, Stroud would often give him fly stuff gratis. (Hmmm - is this a fish story?
Frank is at least in his mid-50s, Stroud Tackle opened in the early to
mid 70s...).

Santa Ana river jetties and Talbert Channel, a prime spot for beans,
is just down the road
from Frank's shop and he fishes the area alot. The first time I
visited Frank, it was getting late in the day and he invited me to fish with him there but I had to pass.
Frank believes
in sight casting a fly to a bean and setting up so that the fly will swing near the bean -
and notes that beans, like bonefish, don't like the fly to come at them.
He says if you drift a bug within 1 inch of a bean's nose, it will take it
every time.
(When he first told me this, it reminded me of the camp story I heard
as a 7 year old about
the way to catch a snipe (a bird) is to put salt on its tail).

Frank told me that he and a buddy once caught 21 beans in one
session at or near the jetties area. I love hearing Frank's stories and I love
visiting his shop - the only shop in SoCal where they tie 90% of
their flies on the premises. Grace, in the shop, is a fantastic fly tyer
and will show you how to tie the pattern of your choosing if you
sweet talk her.
Frank's is also the only place I have found where you can still buy a
Cortland XRL line (XRL=exposed braided running line), one of the best distance lines out there - these were discontinued but Frank still has them
made for his shop.

Hey, this sounds like a commercial...

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

I sent Shane's post about Alamitos history to Rich Jacobsen. Rich knew all of the names that
Shane mentioned and says the history that I posted earlier stands. I think Rich developed the long leader technique
closer to 1994-5, as Doug U. remembered, rather than in 1998 or 1999.
(however, an article in my next post by Bill Becher suggests that Rich
started fishing for beans in 1997).

Rich explained the process of figuring out the floating line/long leader technique at Alamitos:

"When I started in Alamitos bay I was there 40 to 50 hours a week. I put in many
14 hour days trying to find a way to catch the corbina. I was the only fly fisherman
there for a year or two."

He said Doug then took the baton and is the "master catcher" at Alamitos now.

Steve comment: Most guys tried for awhile to catch beans on the fly, but quickly moved on to other more easily
caught species.

Steve: "Rich, What drove you to
spend all those hours on corbina in the very beginning?"

Rich:
" [Because] They were caught so easily by the bait and grub guys are were touted as great
gamefish and the fact that it wasn't being done. Like catching mullet. John Hill
is catching them on a black nymph and on caddis flys in the flood channels.
Imagine dry fly fishing for mullet. What a blast. The next best thing would
be a halli on a popper."

Steve comment: Looking back from this later date, it is easy to assume that Rich just
went to Alamitos with a long leader and started catching beans right away. Not so -
it took alot of persistence.

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

Bill Becher wrote an article titled "Corbina on the Fly", in Southwest Fly Fishing, Summer, 2002

Bill Becher is a freelance writer and photographer living at Westlake Village north of LA.
He had not caught a corbina himself and went on a quest to find out how to by contacting
acknowledged corbina experts.

First he went blind casting with Richard Jacobsen in Long Beach Harbor

He noted that Jacobsen is meticulous in preparation. He applies sunscreen at home
to avoid contaminating flies and equipment, and he wears light-colored clothing to
avoid spooking fish. No fishing details are discussed and
no dice for Bill and Rich that day.

Bill notes that Jacobsen talked about fishing from the seawall in the surf at Corona del
Mar where one can easily see the beans. Rich pointed out that corbina are less spooky in deeper water, and suggested
casting almost parallel to shore in 1-4 ft of water in the surf.

Most of the article focuses on a fly fishing session for corbina in the open surf
with Gary Bulla. Ken Hanley is tapped for additional info.

Gary had been fly fishing for corbina for 12 years - this puts his start at 1989-1990.

Bulla likes to start early morning before a low tide, and fish on the incoming tide.
He starts fishing from the dry beach since beans can slide into very shallow water
but wades in shallow water if necessary.
He casts so as to lead a corbina with the fly, keeps his rod low, and uses a long and fine leader.
In clear water he uses small size 6 or 8 subdued flies.

Gary approaches fish several ways. Ideally he likes to position himself perpendicular
or behind a holding fish. He then presents the fly far enough ahead of the fish
to disguise the splashdown, and strips the fly with the current toward the bean.
He fishes down and across the current unless he can high stick them in a nearby hole.
Gary sometimes disguises casts by casting onto a breaking wave or
by casting to wet sand and letting it get pulled back into the water.
He makes short continuous strips to stay in contact with the fly.
Swim the fly to the bean if you can, or cast at an angle so that the fly intercepts
the bean's path. Sometimes Gary wades out past the beans and casts
back towards shore.

Gary suggests using a 6-8 wt fly rod, and a sinking-head line, or in small surf even a floating line.

Becher presents some info also that he obtained from Ken Hanley.

Ken prefers to try for beans in the nearshore trough rather than the swash zone. He notes
that fish in the swash zone are mainly feeding by feel and smell, whereas in the trough
they are relying more on sight. The latter favors fly fishers and is a higher percentage game.

Ken sees a fish in the nearshore trough and he casts with the current. He tries to present
the fly so that he can see the fish's reaction to it. He uses a short sink tip line with a 7 ft
leader. He makes short 25-30 foot casts and tries to swim the fly to the fish. Using this
method he can often get several shots at a fish.
Ken likes to fish an incoming tide in the morning when feeding is generally more active.
He tries to spot fish that are tailing or moving, a sign that they are feeding.
Hale

So, in summary, this article by Becher in 2002 mainly describes the sight fishing techniques of
Gary Bulla and Ken Hanley in the open surf. Some fishing in the skinny goes
on, but most is in the trough using techniques that fly fishers use in trout streams
with some modifications. It sounds like they are usually slowly moving into
a favorable position, crouching and making careful casts.

Bill Becher came out of the 2 fishing sessions with top corbina
guides still without a bean. Join the club.

This article reveals alot of details about technique and equipment, and DFG info
on the fish itself. I have heavily paraphrased parts but there is alot more worth reading. There is a small mention of Bill Calhoun, who guided
out of Bob Marriotts and created
the Calhoun swimming mole crab fly pattern. He is probably in his
40s, now lives and guides near Newport where he is pictured with
a large spotfin on the cover of Cal. Fly Fisher, and might have additional info on the history of fly fishing for corbina.
Very good stuff and a must-read for corbina fanatics.

Steve P.

[Steve P.]

Saltwater Fly Fishing off the coast of SoCal and Nick Curcione in 1977

Charlie Davis authored a book titled "Hook Up: A complete
guide to southern california ocean sportfishing" in 1977.
It deals primarily with conventional fishing but the book makes
it clear that Davis fly fished for species like bonito and even albacore.

There is one
short chapter titled "Flyrodding" with 1 page of text and
3 pictures - 2 of streamer fly patterns, and 1 of a couple
fly fishing from a boat at Redondo Beach - might be Nick C.
In the text, it refers to the "growing sport of fishing the ocean
with a flyrod" and says that most fly fishers use a fast sinking
head with 25-30 lb of mono behind it. It also mentions that
"The Arizona Flycasters of Phoenix have fished the upper waters
of the Gulf of California for years with fly rods", mainly
in the surf and estuaries. It says they regularly catch corbina,
white sea bass and cabrilla. He must mean corvina since
corbina do not occur in the upper gulf to my knowledge.

There is also a chapter titled "Surf Fishing".
The chapter is mainly about conventional fishing and says that corbina are best
caught on softshell sand crabs in the white water after a wave breaks.
However, it also says: "Nick Corcione [sic] of Hermosa Beach has discovered that corbina,
along with surf perch, will take an orange fly. He fishes from the breaker line
to the foam at his feet, and believes most surf fishermen fish too far out. Some
light tackle enthusiasts fish very light line with mussels and no sinker."

There is one 1 full page b/w
photo on page 75 of Nick standing on the water's edge holding a corbina with a fly in
its mouth. He is also holding a fly rod, with the same wader, shirt, cap outfit, and sunglasses.
This might be the first published photo showing a corbina caught on the fly.




Another b/w photo attributed to Nick C. shows a bsp and corbina on the sand, with caption that they were caught on the fly.

Among the color pages between text pages 70 and 71,
there are also 2 full page color photos by Nick C. One shows Nick C. fly fishing shin deep in the surf with waders,
flannel shirt, knit cap, and blue dishpan stripping basket. This might be the
first published photo showing someone fly fishing in the California surf.




The other
shows a fly rod with a fighting butt with Pflueger Medalist reel and 5 barred surf perch on
the sand, with a simple canvas fish bag.

Davis mentions that the new graphite rods work very well for ocean fly rodding.

Unrelated to corbina but interesting, Davis writes:

"The story of how the halibut got its name is interesting. In England,
in the early days, all flat fish were called "butts" and the best of
the butts were saved for the priests, or holy-men; thus the name."

[But this sounds like a more plausible explanation of the word from
the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., 2000
online at http://www.bartleby.com/61/62/H0026200.html

ETYMOLOGY: Middle English : hali, holi, holy (from its being eaten on holy days); see holy + butte, flatfish (from Middle Dutch; see bhau- in Appendix I).]


Steve P.

[Larry Carroll]

John McKim included Ned Grey's sand crab pattern in his book Fly Tying - Adventures In Fur, Feathers and Fun published in 1982. I'm pretty sure McKim had published the same pattern in Western Outdoors a year or two earlier.

I made my first stab at the surf in the late 70's (or early 80's?) on a SPFF outing lead by Nick Curcione. (I still cringe at the memory of whacking myself in the back with thirty feet of leadcore.)