Morro Bay

Perching At Morro Bay

by Matt

The surf is one of my most favorite places to fish in California. With over 800 miles of coastline and several different species to target, California’s surf is one of the most unique and challenging place to fish in the state. I’ve fished the surf all throughout the state from the northern tip in Crescent City down to the southern border in San Diego and although some trips aren’t as productive as others, nothing beats beach therapy with a fishing rod.

The beaches that I usually fish are outside of San Francisco as they are the closest beaches from me at a 2.5hr drive. Wanting to experience something different I planned a trip to the Central Coast down to Morro Bay. I was able to secure a spot at the Morro Strand Beach Campground and planned on staying two nights to fish the surf and the jetty. My fingers were crossed hoping that the weather and ocean would cooperate with me.

Morro Bay is a long 5 hour drive from my location. I left at around 9am and arrived at my campsite at Morro Strand Beach campground at about 2pm. The campground was okay, it wasn’t very spacious or scenic but it had easy access to the beach. My site was in the middle section where there was a small strip of land between the roads. After taking a break from driving and setting up my tent I set out to the surf at around 4pm. The surf conditions felt pretty tough: I was fishing an incoming tide, the wind was howling over 15-25mph, and the swell periods were tight. Morro Bay appeared relatively flat at Morro Strand Beach but the water still looked pretty good. The beach was full of sand crabs which was a good sign. Rather than trying to fight the heavy wind on my fly rod I opted for my spinning rod I had Carolina rigged with a motor grub. I wasn’t surprised to not find any fish mid-day but kept fishing to try and figure out the evening bite times. I fished the surf hard until last light but didn’t hook a single fish. The surf can be known to be either a hit or miss and this trip was shaping up to be a miss.

The following morning at first light I set out to Morro Strand Bay – Day Use Area. Although I was fishing an outgoing tide I’ve always had better luck finding fish during low light hours. It didn’t take very long for me to find a couple of surf perch but I had to make super long casts to get to where they were. Most of the fish I caught were pretty small about the size of my palm with the exception of a nice-sized jacksmelt. I was doing relatively well until the sun came out after about an hour of fishing. I packed it up and drove up to Cayucos to see if I could find any more fish but got hit with the same skunk I got yesterday despite fishing an incoming tide.

It was only about 8am at this point and I had plans to check out the jetty to see if conditions would allow me to fish off of it with my fly rod. I was able to admire Morro Rock on the walk to the jetty but ultimately found the ocean to be too rough to safely fish. I was defeated. Every plan I had made kept coming up short and staying another night as planned would’ve been miserable so I packed it up and decided to head home. The original plan was to take the HWY 1 through Big Sur to experience the scenic view but I wanted to give the surf one more shot in Santa Cruz.

I started the drive up to Santa Cruz later than I would’ve liked and made it to Sunset Beach at about 6pm. There were a few other anglers in the parking lot gearing up and the report I got from them was good. The surf was looking pretty damn good from the view above the cliff and I was excited. I took my spinning rod outfit, hiked down the cliff, and started casting into a nice looking trough. The fishing was similar to my experience in Morro Bay with just a few palm sized surf perch here and there. After about 30 minutes my Carolina rig broke off and I had forgotten to bring my tacklebox with me to rerig my rod. I hiked all the way back up the cliff, threw my spinning rod in the car, set-up my 8WT fly rod, and hiked all the way back down. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about using my fly rod because I had forgotten to pack my stripping basket but I was willing to try and make it work. I rigged a clouser with a shrimp pattern in hopes of catching an elusive surf striper. I fished until sunset and was able to catch a few small perch and a decent size slab perch that I kept for dinner. After everyone had left I went back to the car to pack up and met a few of the other anglers that were out on the surf with me. We shared reports and all had similar experiences, a few here and there but nothing consistent.

Overall the trip was a bit of a bust. It was nice to explore new places and I’m happy to have caught fish but it would’ve been nice to have caught fish more consistently. The ocean giveth and the ocean taketh.

Dry Creek (Sacramento/Placer County)

Urban Creeking At Dry Creek (Sacramento/Placer County)

by Matt

Dry Creek is an anadromous creek that is a tributary of Steelhead Creek which itself is a tributary of the Sacramento River. Its headwaters consist of many small creeks that converge into one as it runs through the cities of Roseville and Rio Linda. The creek is geologically interesting as it is made up of mostly diorite (a peppery colored rock) created from the magma of a Mesozoic era volcano along with other finer materials such as sand and mud. Due to the creek’s anadromous nature it is only opened east of Atkinson Street bridge in Roseville from the fourth Saturday in May to October 15th to the protect the salmon spawn. There doesn’t appear to be any special regulations west of Atikinson Street bridge therefore it can be fished year-round with general trout restrictions.

From my experience small streams tend to be either a hit or a miss. I can always find fish in a creek but finding them consistently can be a challenge. My baseline for judging a small warmwater creek is Big Chico Creek which in my opinion is the one of best smallmouth bass stream fisheries in the state. I did a bit of research on Dry Creek and saw that it primarily contains spotted bass, sunfish, and pike minnow. There wasn’t a lot of information other than a few videos of people fishing the creek and people asking how it fishes. Dry Creek is relatively close to home so I thought it would be an interesting place to explore.

I first laid eyes on Dry Creek from the Dry Creek trail in Rio Linda. I was surprised to find the creek bed was made up of what mostly looked like light brown sediment. This was new to me as I was hoping for a more freestone creek. The water was clear and clean which was a good surprise. I knew that with a such a unique bottom the fishing was going to be challenging. I waded around and kept an eye out for fish but didn’t find much. Discouraged, I thought that maybe higher upstream the creek bed would be different so I drove east towards Roseville to Dry Creek Community Park.

The creek bed at Dry Creek Community Park looked no different than it did at Dry Creek trail. The only major difference was that there was more tree cover. I sucked it up and made my way downstream below the bridge to see if I could hook any fish. I was using 3WT rigged with a small size 8 woolly bugger. I caught mostly spotted bass in addition to a single sunfish. I observed what looked like pike minnow or hardhead but didn’t manage to hook any. I found that the fish in Dry Creek don’t like holding in current as the majority of the fish I found were mostly in froggy water that was about 3ft deep. Unfortunately, these goldilocks zones were relatively far apart from each other so there was a lot of water that didn’t hold any fish.

I give Dry Creek a 4/10 as far as fishing goes. Although the fishing wasn’t great, Dry Creek would be a fantastic place for a family creek outing. The creek is clean, quiet, shallow, and despite being in a highly populated area it wasn’t very busy and I didn’t see any homeless encampments in the areas that I fished. Whether you want to wet your line or your feet Dry Creek is definitely a good place to check out.

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