A surfperch-fishing tournament in Grover Beach drew crowds to a bait shop on Betteravia Road at the beginning of February. Surfperch fishing, said Been There, Caught That owner Tina Anderson, is “off the hook. It’s been really good. There’s lots of buzz. [The] big tournament here about two weeks ago generated a lot of interest.”
That tournament was just one of several upcoming fishing derbies along the coast. Central Coast Kayak Fishing is sponsoring a derby on Feb. 22 in Morro Bay. After that, there are more on the docket in cities like Carpinteria and Monterey. And at beaches up and down the Central Coast, on any given day, you can find people trying their luck along the shore.
According to a 2011 report by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, recreational fishing for surfperch in California has declined to about half of what it was in 1981. Still, it remains a popular and accessible pastime on beaches like the one in Guadalupe to anyone with a length of line and a fishing license.
Gerald Reed, a retired barber, was knee-deep in the surf of Rancho Guadalupe on a clear, bright Thursday afternoon.
“I’ve been fishing in Guadalupe on and off for 45 years,” he explained.
He likes fishing for surfperch because it’s comfortable for him. He started fishing seriously at the age of 19 and kept it up. “Me and my brother-in-law used to come out here 8at night and surf fish,” he explained.
Rafael Castellanos, wearing a backpack, a backward cap, and a sleeve of tattoos, comes out to Guadalupe because it’s a short drive from Santa Maria.
“Oh man,” he said that Thursday, “I try to make it out twice a week. They’re biting hard right now!” He prefers to come out during high tide, but “when they’re biting like this, any time [of day] is good. Now’s the time to come out.”
There isn’t just one season for surfperch. There are no size limits, save for Northern California’s redtail variety. Eighteen different species live off the state’s coast.
Surfperch are opportunistic, scavenging fish. They dart through the shallow water along shorelines looking for marine life kicked up by the waves: small worms, sand crabs, and decomposing bits of whatever has washed up. Like many predators, the fish hunt during the low light of the early morning or late evening.
You don’t need a boat to fish for them. If you can dig for sand crabs, you don’t need to bring your own bait. You don’t even need a fishing pole: A quarter mile down the beach at Guadalupe, one man was casting with a length of line wrapped around a plastic soda bottle.
If you bring a pole, former Cal Poly Fishing Club President John Zeolla recommends a spinner rod that’s 7- to 9-feet tall to cast over the waves. “You want to put a tiny little hook on, because [perch] have tiny little mouths,” Zeolla explained. “You have too big of a hook, and they’ll nibble around the bait and you’ll never be able to catch them.”
Zeolla will tie a smaller line—in this case, a 5-pound test—as his leader. Any heavier and they won’t bite: “The smart ones will know what line looks like,” he said. He fishes with a Shakespeare Ugly Stick.
“They’re pretty much unbreakable,” he bragged, bending the point of his pole downward until it curved in and nearly touched the shaft of the pole.
For bait, he uses what he calls “the secret perch-killer worm,” also know as The Berkley Gulp Sandworm. The Berkley Gulp is scented; it has a briny, plastic smell that seeps out through the water.
“I’ve fished with it so much I actually like the smell,” Zeolla said.
Live sand crabs also work well as bait. Zeolla looks for the telltale bubbling in the sand after a wave washes out and uses his hands and feet to excavate small sand crabs.
“The best kind of sand crab bait is the ones who have just molted, the soft shell sand crabs,” he said. If the sand crab is too big, it will often wriggle off the hook; it needs to be big enough, however, for the perch to see.
“Right now, because the water’s so chopped up, it’s more a sight-based technique,” Zeolla said about the water that Thursday.
Casting, he said, is “all about release points. It’s a lot like throwing a baseball.”
He recommended lofting the line, not snapping it, and releasing it at 1 or 2 o’clock. “You try and whip it, most of the time it’ll break off. When you’re trying to make a cast, you want to cast over where the waves are breaking. Once you get past them, it’s way easier to keep your bait out there. The waves won’t move it.”
Once the cast is made, Zeolla explained, “you’re subtly moving it, trying to figure out where they’re at, get the bait moving up and down in the water column.”
For all Zeolla’s expertise, unfortunately, it’s still up to the perch whether they decide to fall for the perfect cast and go for the bait. His attempts to catch fish that day in Guadalupe left him empty handed after two hours of casting and recasting.
As he loaded his fishing gear into his SUV, his eyes were already on the next trip: A weekend trying for bass in the big reservoirs around Stockton. “Gotta go to Tackle Warehouse, get some stuff, figure out what baits I want to take,” he mused. For Zeolla, there’s always more fish—in the sea, in the reservoir, or wherever they do (or don’t) bite.
Contact Staff Writer Sean McNulty at smcnulty@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 19-26, 2015.