Watch out for those Clousers!

Spent an afternoon with my girlfriend and our baby boy at the local beach. It was a beautiful 70 degree day. Lots of gulls flying around, very little wind, a perfect day. The two stayed on the beach while I went out into the surf and chased sharks.



Oh my, fly fishing in the surf can be quite dangerous at times. While fly fishing the surf on Wednesday, as I was standing in the surf I see what I'm targeting, Leopard Sharks, not one, an entire school of Leopards just feet in front of me! Now I'm not sure as to how many people have actually been bit by one of these sharks, but it's just the thought that it's a school of three to six foot sharks cruising back and forth just feet in front of me.

Another hazard you have to watch out for is from lousy fly casters! You say who is the lousy caster? Me... Well sometimes it's windy out on the Socal beaches, but wait on this day the wind was very mild and almost not an issue at all.

The first near miss was when the fly came from behind and hit me just above my ear. This was a clouser minnow shooting through the air! Oh well that was a close call, I keep casting and managed to hook into three Leopard shark, one of which was a small three footer that was foul hooked on one of it's pectoral fins. The other two sharks headed for the Santa Barbara Islands and I never seen them. Those are the big boys, I had both on for a short time maybe about ten to fifteen minutes before breaking them off. It's quite cool to see the line just disappear off the reel in a matter of seconds. How often can you say a trout took you into your backing and nearly spooled you, never.

I kept at it, casting with a double haul and making fast strips, the action had slowed down a bit, but the sharks kept breaking the surface every few minutes. As I was casting something went wrong and along came this clouser minnow flying at me at break neck speeds, well maybe not that fast, but it came flying at me nonetheless. I feel the fly hit me right in the crotch! Oh shit, that was close... I look down and see the clouser stuck in my waders. The fly went completely through my gortex waders, I'm going to need a patch. I start my walk back to shore and could visualize the image if I would have walked into the hospital with a clouser minnow impaled into my manly-hood... Ouch!

So as you can see it can get down right dangerous fly fishing the surf, here is the money shot of my near mishap.


Clouser in the crotch!

Aside from almost being impaled and eaten by a school of leopard sharks, we had a pretty great time.

Watch out for those Clousers!
The SoCal FlyFisher