30 Dec. 8- 22, 2017 VOL. 36 • ISS. 26

or larger surges that throw spray onto the waterfront and passing cars. Even days when it seems not to be blowing, the surge and swell can still crash in and it’ s just a miserable rough day to be out on the water … even if the sun is shining and it’ s a pleasant 90 degrees! These are just days when it’ s nicer to hang out on the beach or find some friendly cantina to pour a cold one and wrap your hand around a fish taco.”

“ On the days when it’ s calm enough and there’ s no winds, there’ s still some surprisingly decent fishing. Waters are definitely getting cooler and not quite as blue and a little more cloudy and green as the winds turn it up. However, there’ s still some spots of 10-20 pound tuna and some nice schools of dorado in varying sizes. However, with the cooler waters, we’ re seeing more cooler water species like sierra, snapper, pargo, cabrilla, and amberjack,” said Roldan

John landed this incredible grouper while fishing Mexican waters aboard the Excel on November 18. Photo courtesy of EXCEL LONG RANGE SPORTFISHING, San Diego.

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lonely man’ s sport where the angler, using a big heavy surf rod, would chuck out a 4 oz-8 oz sinker on the end of a two-hook surf leader with a couple of baited hooks.

To complete the picture, the rod would then be inserted into a tall rod holder and the wait would be on until

Two of the earliest pioneers of light tackle surf perch fishing were the famous Abe and Angelo Cuanang. If I remember correctly, they were the first to publicize the use of light tackle and surf grubs in the pages of the wonderful Angler magazine, an absolutely marvelous fishing publication from years gone by.

To sum up, the rig they used consisted of a seven foot Fenwick rod powering some six or eight pound test line. The line was threaded through an egg sinker, an 8mm red bead, and tied to a small # 10 swivel. A short 18”-24” leader terminated with a # 8 octopus hook whereupon a 1.5” grub was threaded.

This rig has counted towards thousands of perch( and also a number of striped bass and halibut, too!) being caught off our coast and continues to be a surf

staple.

This is also the rig my fishing pals Billy D and Buddy-X have been using with the Berkley Gulp Sandworm. As I watched them fishing, however, I came up with a couple of modifications that I felt would advance the sport.

Originally, Billy D went for the shorter seven foot rod, but Buddy-X went with a longer nine foot steelhead styled rod. This is no big secret as many of the surf perch crowd has been using the steelhead rods for years. The longer rod offers a longer cast, a little more flex when fighting a fish, and the longer butt section affords a little more comfort when casting all day.

The sliding egg sinker, though, has been a sore point for me and for others I have interviewed. You see, the line doesn’ t have to slide through the hole since one isn’ t feeding line when the perch takes the bait. The hole does, in fact, get lots of sand stuck in the hole and that is very abrasive, resulting in line failure and possibly a lost fish.

The perch sharpies down in Monterey avoid the problem by using a two-eyed torpedo sinker instead of the sliding egg sinker. The problem with that is that there is no place for the 8mm red bead, the red bead having proven itself a fish attractor of sorts.

The solution I came up with starts with

a short piece of # 13 American Fishing Wire single strand leader wire. Using a pair of round nosed pliers, I formed a small loop on the end of the wire. I added two 8mm red glass beads, then a bullet sinker to the wire, then finished it off with another small loop. I had created, in effect, a rattling two-eyed sinker.

For the leader, I tied a # 10 snap swivel to a short piece of fluorocarbon and then tied on the hooks 24” away from that. Yes, you read right, hooks! The problem was that when using a single hook, a 1.5”- 2” piece of Gulp Sandworm would attract a bite, but as luck would have it, the perch

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Using a shorter piece of Gulp Sandworm didn’ t garner as many bites; the obvious solution was to snell tie a pair of hooks, about an inch apart, so that any bite on the bait would result in a hookup.

The leaders are all tied with a snap swivel so that when / if a fish swallows the bait, you’ re not fooling around trying to unhook the rascal. Unclip the leader, clip on a new one, and off you go.

I try not to endorse too many products in my writing, but from time to time, something outstanding appears, and in this case, Berkley’ s Gulp Sandworm in camo is just such a product

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