san simeon- good day

Fished N of San Simeon on Saturday- greasy calm, and great conditions all day.  I could see the bluffs above los osos from the ocean.  The bite was initially slow, so I switched to a 3 oz wieght and an in-line shrimp fly w/ squid- that save the day and really turned on the bite.  I switched back to the regular lead head jigs and it immediately shut down again, so it was clearly the terminal tackle that made the difference.  I even jigged up some sanddabs and drifted them for a bit, but I had no takers. 

Has any of you ever saved an otherwise slow day by switching to small tackle (shrimp flys)???????   I'm definitely keeping that in mind.  it was clearly the ticket!


All in all, probably 40+ fish- mostly blacks, blues and gophers, but got two nice reds (3+ and 4+ lbs) and some nice bolinas also, almost all on shrimp flies.  One marginal ling that decided to release himself as I was measuring him. 

At one point the blacks/blues were hitting flies on top of the water like trout!

I was going to take pics but the camera battery was dead when I got it out on the water-

Rustic Andy

never had a shrimp fly (can you post a pic or a link?) but i have been throwing large crocodile silver spoons & getting good consistent action on those.  tried a smaller one & wasn't as good as the biggest one, 5" long.

Has any of you ever saved an otherwise slow day by switching to small tackle (shrimp flys)???????   I'm definitely keeping that in mind.  it was clearly the ticket!

Rustic Andy

yes this has happened to me a bunch of times. don't know if all shrimp flies are equal but I bought a dozen grey and white deceivers, a salt water fly, on 1/0 hooks and that thing catches a lot of blues and blacks, squid or no squid. this is mainly in a higher pressure area tho.

I guess the smart thing to do is start with it, if you get hits, then take it off and see if the big fish are biting big lures.

I haven't tried a lot of small lures as teasers, I'd like to try a simple 3" grub on a hook.

Best,
John

Teasers with twisty tails tend to snag their tail on their hook due to the way they get jerked both up and down.  A brown, orange, white or green hoochie on a 1/0 hook is a good alternative and they're indestructible.

I believe that when a fish sees a 2" hoochie fleeing a 9" swimbait it gets him very excited and encourages him to try to compete for the hoochie - or attack the swimbait 'predator' while he's distracted.

Teasers with twisty tails tend to snag their tail on their hook due to the way they get jerked both up and down.  A brown, orange, white or green hoochie on a 1/0 hook is a good alternative and they're indestructible.

I believe that when a fish sees a 2" hoochie fleeing a 9" swimbait it gets him very excited and encourages him to try to compete for the hoochie - or attack the swimbait 'predator' while he's distracted.

I have never really tried a teaser shrimpfly or hoochie above my scampi or swimbait.  but Pspark has a very interesting theory that seems to me to be a good tactic to use. I know this is not a new tactic, but the way he explains the "fish psychology" behind it has me converting to the use of a teaser.  Thanks for the insight.