Southern California ain’t South Florida…
We don’t have tarpon, redfish or bonefish – but we do have a wide range of fly fishing opportunities for salt water gamefish.
Mako and blue sharks, Pacific yellowtail (a member of the jack family), albacore, bluefin, skipjack and yellowfin tuna, Pacific bonito and Pacific barracuda top the list, with a healthy sprinkling of various kelp basses and occasional appearances by California halibut and white seabass inshore, and dorado (mahi-mahi or dolphinfish) offshore.
Most of the time you need to get out “beyond the breakwater” in order to take advantage of these fisheries. Most of our fishing occurs along nearshore kelp beds and reefs, or offshore deep-water banks, which means taking your own boat, hiring a guide or taking a charter boat to reach the fish.
Our original publication, “Ocean Skiff Journal” focused on rigging and using small boats offshore. We chose that as a starting point because we were spending a lot of time messing with our project boat (a 17.5′ Edgewater), and wanted to share what we were learning.
“Beyond The Breakwater” arose from a desire to help popularize saltwater fly fishing in Southern California, which we believe is an untapped resource in one of the world’s most populated areas. Over time, we found ourselves posting a lot of duplicate information on both OSJ and BTB, so we finally decided to roll everything together into this one site.
Tim Burwell, with a fish that would have broken the World Record on fly…
We won’t kid you – salt water fly fishing is not nearly as well accepted in Southern California as it is in other parts of the US. And in many cases, people are still searching for that “silver bullet” to consistently capture some of our most popular gamefish on the long rod. But our mission is to change that. Come join us, help us discover and share new techniques and strategies, and experience some great fishing in the process!
Here’s more information on exactly what we’ll be covering in Beyond The Breakwater:
-
We cover “Southern California“…for the most part
That means we cover fishing from Santa Barbara county in the north, down to the Mexican border, and a bit beyond. We include charter and long range activities based out of Southern California that venture south into Mexican Pacific waters off the Baja Peninsula. We’ll also have occasional travel pieces.
-
We cover “coastal” saltwater fly fishing…
Which we define as fishing under 10 miles offshore, but NOT surf or bay fly fishing (hence our name: “Beyond the Breakwater”). There are also great bay and surf fisheries in Southern California, but there are several other websites that cover these areas, and we don’t want to overlap their coverage.
-
We cover “offshore” saltwater fly fishing…
Capt. Vaughn Podmore and a nice Calico Bass
Which we define as anything over 10 miles offshore. This includes the offshore banks as far out as the Cortez and Tanner Banks, the 1010 Trench, and the Double 220. It also includes the Channel Islands, Catalina Island, San Clemente Island, and the Coronado Islands.
-
And lastly – we respect all types of fishing, not just fly fishing
We’re pragmatists – we fish conventional gear when necessary, and also try to adapt conventional techniques to our fly fishing, and vice versa (something we laughingly call “Fusion Fishing”). More comfortable with a Trinidad than a Tibor? Don’t sweat it. We’re not ashamed to admit that we use conventional tackle, and we even keep an occasional fish for the table. But our first love is the fly rod, so we’ll use that first, if we can.