Perching Salinas river 02/17/07

Met up with marmite (Doug) and zeelander (Bryce) at dark thirty at Salinas river for some early morning perching. We were the first to hit the holes at twilight. Zeelander (newbee) does not waste any time to show that beginners luck was with him. He catches the first perch of the day. It wasn't the monster he was looking for but he said it was bigger than the ones he caught at Manresa and was pretty happy with it.

As soon as it was light enough to see where the deep holes were we quickly started working them with are mighty 1 1/2" MORFs. More fisherman started to show up in groups. Must of been thirty or more spread through out the two mile stretch.

I have to say that perching was slow. It took us all of the incoming tide and some of the out going to catch just a few perch each. The water conditions were just right and huge colonies of sand crabs littered the sand bars. I know the perch was out there gorging themself with sandcrabs. Marmite and I even dug some up to try, with no luck at all. So, we ended the day with a total of seven perch with mine being the biggest at eleven inches.    Here's the pic's.


Alex   

Looks like fun guys...I'm jealous.I'm glad you guys left some jumbos for the Sandcrab Classic.

well, alien, putting two new grubbers on fish is an achievement in and of itself, well done you all.

Last may I had a house in santa cruz and every weekend
watched a guy use a super tall (4') pvc rod holder, a 2/0 circle hook (seems huge, I know) and
mussell or soft shell mole crabs, 3' leader, 3oz pyramid on slido. hucked it out there and let it sit, reeled
it in a few feet every couple minutes, like trout powerbaiters do.

he'd kind of do a funny little dance in just his shorts (was a super muscular chinese dude)
while he watched the rod tip and usually a fish would hook itself on the circle hook.
I don't know if you have to do the half-naked perch dance or not,  .
alien, you should consult mooch on that one.

but he did pretty well, I have to say, even caught  a nice striper one day.
did well enough that I made myself a 4' tall pvc rod holder like his, but
I haven't used it yet.  gonna try it with my 1" GULP peeler crabs maybe.

I need a sand scoop to find those soft shell mole crabs.

One other point, in that interview of ron martin, he says he likes the outgo
more than incoming. says the perch are not all there on the incoming,
but are all there by the outgoing?

well, I had the flu, finally recovering, I need to get out and have some fun,  .

J

I've only been perching twice, but I also think the fishing can be more productive on the outgoing tide because the water features are better defined.  On the incoming, the water surface is more chaotic since the incoming waves have more velocity and force as the water advances.  The color of the water is uniformly turbid and it is very hard to see any "shelf" where the fish may be congregating, waiting to pick off morsels.

On the outgoing, the water action is more calm since the water is receding, imparting less energy. You can better see points where the receding streams of water may be concentrating "fishfood".  The water is also clearer and you can usually see a clear demarcation between the clearer backwater and the sand-dense border where the water turbulence is still sufficient to suspend the sand as well as the morsels not yet able to burrow back into the sand.  On the previous trip, it was often as your line came through this zone that the fish would seem to hit.

But on this trip you kind of wondered if the fish might also be full on the outgoing.  We could clearly see a ton of sand crabs tossed up with each receding wave and you wondered why a fish would still be hungry with all that food floating around on the incoming tide.  Maybe, its actually easier for fish to swim and feed in the less turbulent/turbid outgoing water just as it is easier to fish it as well. I imagine for perch, conserving energy is an essential part of survival, just like it is for the river trout who parks behind a stone just waiting for a morsel to float by his nose.

One added benefit of the outgoing tide is you have substantially less risk of being overrun by the waves that steadily advance toward you during the incoming tide.  You can get closer to the water and cast farther out as well.

What a blast! Thanks Alien and Marmite for bringing me along on the adventure! It wasn't the easiest day but pulled in some good sized fish that made a tasty dinner so can't complain. Alien did a great job of pointing out some great holes and they produced for all of us.  Can't wait to go out Perchin' again!

Z

You guys should go down to Andrew molera and go perching .....I am sure you will be very happy

Chefstefano/steve