David Siskind | Sunday, 3 August 2025
Jackie and I went back to the beach on Tuesday - she flew back to NY on tsunami Wednesday - I don’t know anyone who saw anything of it here in LA. Despite good conditions, the corbina showed only sporadically. A couple of backs and a few swirls in the swash. Nothing repeating. Swash is a new word for me - it shouldn’t be (Al Quattrocchi refers to it in Diaries) - but I guess I didn’t notice it. I like it. It’s that zone where the water comes and goes at the margin of the surf. It’s where the sand crabs live. Emerita Analoga. Apparently (according to Wikipedia and Diaries) they feed, mate and disperse their eggs there, following the swash with the tide, popping out of their burrows to reposition, tumbling inshore on the rising tide and away from shore on the falling tide. They burrow butt first leaving their front filter legs out to gather food. I have often “snagged” them - a bother when placing a fly on a bed ahead of a wave and only Tuesday discovered, on close inspection, that they are always hooked through the mouth parts.
Thursday was amazing. Conditions at the beach were sweet - wave energy low, low-low tide right at dawn, and a little later some sun that broke through the typical morning gloom to light up the flats. Fish were everywhere. Backs out, tails up, cruising every little channel. Eating in the swash. I know I saw well over 100 fish. It was crazy. I didn’t catch any. I brought one to hand that I had hooked in the tail - sorry Mr. Bean - and had two other maybe-bites. There were two other flyfishers out there having similar experiences. While the shots are always difficult, I had lengthened my leader and did not line or spook many. I tried a pink surfin’ merkin and watched good fish swim past lit like it wasn’t there. I threw some gray merkins and corbina crack flies at them too. So many shots. Many of these fish were 10 to 40 feet from the swash and maybe crabs aren’t available there. Could it be that they were feeding on something else? Worms maybe?
Friday I went out again armed with new strategies, a lighter-longer leader and a reorganized fly box to carry out the plan. No one was feeding in the swash. No one. So I fished a white-rabibit-strip streamer waiting for the tide, sunlight and time to change in my favor. I caught one little barred surf perch. These guys are caught to 15” or so and are fun enough but the big ones have moved further north in the last few weeks. I was hoping for halibut. The perch might have been weeny but at least I wasn’t skunked.
The same people walk their dogs on my beach every day. My favorites accompany an elderly (look who’s talking) lady. One little rat-dog is on a long leash and walks slower than even she does and pretty much gets dragged through the sand. The other is off the leash getting yelled at a lot. Fish or no fish the beach is a good place to spend mornings and every dog has his day.
David Siskind