Fly Fishing Northern California
Fishing estuaries?
What is the best technique for taking wild cutthroat on the Northern California coast? I fly fish and spincast.
Searun Cutthroat are a great fish to catch. Please release any you do catch. I don’t know about the California fish, but up here in Washington they were almost wiped out until they made them Catch & Release in Puget Sound. Now there numbers are back up to a fairly healthy level and they are great fun to fish for. Please go barbless on either your flies and or lures and use single hooks.
The Cutthroat acts just about the same in the saltwater as it does in the freshwater, except there are bigger predictors that it has to watch out for.
They like to hang around structure, be it rocks or pilings or whatever, they like the safety of the structure plus it gives them great cover to attack their prey. Searuns will often hang around places where freshwater flows into the saltwater, most likely they make their runs up those creeks or rivers and spawn, then head back to the salt. They will travel however so they are not always near freshwater inputs.
They feed very close to the shore, really close. If you are in a boat the ideal way to fish for them is to cast so your fly right onto the edge of the water then start stripping the fly in. The fish will often follow a fly or lure almost to the boat before they either refuse it or take it with vengeance.
You can either use a weight forward floating line or a clear intermediate shooting head line. There is no need for a heavy sinking tip line.
If you are fishing from shore, don’t wade way out. The fish are in really close. Cast out at about a 45 degree angle and strip in your line, keeping the rod tip right down to the water. You are going to want to bring it in almost to the tip or the start of your leader.
Vary your speeds of retrieval, slow to fast, intermittent, include pauses sometimes, just to find out what they are keying on that day.
For flies, go smaller than salmon flies. Crazy Charlies are good or just a plain old streamer, tied on a #6 to #8 hook. Chartreuse is a great color up here or chartreuse and white, with the white on the bottom. Sardine or anchovies imitations also work good, just smaller than what you would use for salmon. You can always try some pink shrimp type flies.
Woolly Buggers work well for searuns as will most streamers you may fish in fresh water. If you use a freshwater fly just plan on disposing of it after it has spent time in the saltwater, but they work great when you do use them.
Searuns to move around a lot. Pick an area and plan on making a few casts then move up or down the beach a few feet and cast again for a couple of times, then move again. If you look long enough you may find them, plus there is always the chance of picking up some other type of fish.
A 5 weight rod is a light as you want to go, 6 weight is a little better especially if you catch some other type of fish.
Good fishing.
Larry
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