I left work at around 12:30, ran a couple of errands and headed to the beach, such a beautiful day
I arrived at around 2:00 and there were some beach goers but it wasn’t crowded.
I saw some birds feasting on sandcrabs or something and I tried that spot with a shrimp pattern fly
Good thing because right after that I got a fish
not huge but I got me a nice little ray
it liked my fly a lot and wanted it for lunch
Left at 4:15 when the action probably got better but I had to pick up my daughter from school.
Gosh I wish I could do this more often
It was weird but I’ve caught enough to know when I get hit by them, they don’t run but you can feel the pull when they shake. I have caught shark (sand, leopard and shovel nose) on conventional gear and I just throw them back so there’s fish when I come back. I have eaten perch and corbina…yummy!
Ok, well i asked if you eat sand shark because when i was 7 or 8 i remember going to a big fish fry on a Friday afternoon with my parents. In those days kids could go to a bar so long as food was served. I got to go back into the kitchen and i saw the small sand sharks being prepared and i remember seeing ppl pounding the shark steaks like one would pound abalone. I remember thinking that shark couldn’t taste good but i did try it and i was surprised. After that i remember looking forward to the ‘shark frys’ on Fridays and ate lots of it. Might be worth a try.
I take the thing of it is knowing how to prepare it, maybe if I knew somebody who could. If you ever come to SoCal we can cook a couple if we catch them.
Deal MM, i’ll let you know next trip to SOCA and we’ll go hunt sharks. I know some great beaches for that in Sb if you ever get up that way. Yep, they just skinned 'em, steaked across about an inch or so thick, pounded those, then cut 'em up in chunks, some kind beer batter i’m guessing (it was a bar afterall) and then properly fast deep fried and man were they good. The texture was such that one could chew instead of having the meat just mush out. I liked it a lot and would eat some in a minute.
I believe you may have eaten Angel Shark. They are rather large and are you can spear them around the Channel Islands. If you see large thick scallops in the store, they are probably Angel Shark punches. They taste and have the consistency of scallops. I personlly haven’t heard of anyone eating sand sharks or shovel nose, but you never know. Let me know if you try one Martin and how it tastes.
Hello Beaver, well when i was a kid growing up on the bay, the fishermen and the ppl at the bar in the kitchen and my dad said they were sand sharks and it stuck with me. There may have been leopard sharks in there too. These were pretty small and they tasted great to me and the bay had nice clear, fairly cold water in those days.
Funny you should mention Channel Islands…we lived in SB for about 6 years up on the Mesa so i know all about the ‘big scallops’ and wow, back then the abs were plentiful and cheap right down the street at the commercial docks. They’d sell the big pinks for a dollar…5 to 7 steaks. Good stuff…could get good big Kings out by the platforms and really got a kick out of watching the basking sharks cruising the edges of the kelp beds. Thanks for bringing up memories. Oh, never did cook up a shark in SB…there was so much good cheap seafood to choose from, din’t have to.
Things have changed with abalone. Wilted foot disease has decimated the abalone population here. You can’t legally take an abalone anymore around here. On occasion the kings will show up by the platforms, but it has been awhile. Still a great place to live though. Abalone for a buck??? Thought I was the only one around during those times. LOL
Those were some days, huh ! A dollar for some of the best eating there ever was. We liked being able to get some of those once in a while. We lived there long enough to see the decline also and the guys in the fishing fleet were complaining more and more that there was something wrong with the crop. Yeah, they picked it out was what it came down to. Urchins too. I’ve got an ab shell that’s about a foot across and remember when shells were piled high along the coast for sale for a quarter. I don’t see any anywhere anymore.
Still getting kings once in a while then…good and hopefully they’ll become plentiful again. I remember the anchovie rig well…flasher, pink lady, swivels…other boats would holler over if you got one…“how many pulls” ?
Well we were there in the early '70s clear through to the late '70’s. Do you remember a place in Carp where one could cook their own steak and get all the trimmin’s along with it for $3.50 ? That was a fun time for me.
Yup. Can’t recall the name though. Last I heard, I think it closed a couple of years ago. I haven’t been up to Carp in a while though. You can get abalone in Fort Bragg if you free dive for them. I have a dive buddy that goes up there every year. Those were the days.
Hey Beaver, do you fly fish the surf here in SoCal? Maybe one of these days you can give me a few pointers, I’m still a bit new to the surf fishing game.
Not yet. That’s my goal for the upcoming year. Doing the conventional gear thing right now and doing some information gathering on fly fishing the surf. I only trout fish with fly gear right now. I do have a pretty cool site that a friend that flyfishes the surf gave me. http://fliflicker.com/ There is some great info here on fly fishing the so cal surf. Check it out.
I don’t know much but if you ever wanna get together to flick flies to the suds you know where to find me. There will be a trout huger ball around Santa Monica on the 21 of this month, experts on fly fishing the surf will be passing on info if you’re interested. I’m going for sure.
It was called ‘The Palms’ Beaver. We’d go there every once in a while on the spur of the moment and it was always the same and that was good.
I was just talking with someone this summer about free diving at Fort Bragg…forgot about that.
Cheers,
MontanaMoose
P.S. I used to go out of Ojai once in a while to a stocked creek that i
can’t remember the name of. Used to sneak into Juncal too.
You were probably fishing the Sespe Creek. Great place to backpack for wild trout. Used to do a trip once a year, but quit a few years back. There is Matillija Creek and Santa Paula Creek that they stock also.
Martin,
I may take you up on that when I get my stuff together one of these days. Have trout gear but no salt gear yet.
Beaver, Matillija sounds right if it’s along the road on the right headed towards …Johnson Park maybe? It was stocked and we din’t have to hike in. Caught lots of trout…used to let 'em go even back then.
There was an old store and maybe gas too way the heck and gone out there. Drove a '50 Chevy pu in those days…times of my life all around there…first smallies came from Santa Ynez River up past Cachuma. Big ones in those days too. In the fall they loaded the upper Santa Ynez up with trout plus there were lake runs…had a ball up there and never anyone around in those days. Someone named Jane flyfished up there.
