Waving a Stick at the Ocean: Fly Fishing for Surf Perch on the Oregon Coast
After heading west from Eugene for just under an hour, crossing the Siuslaw bridge at Mapleton, turning left at the Home of the Sailors mural, and finally passing all the tourist traffic, the coast isn’t all that far. If the weather is warm enough and dry enough and the marine layer plays nice enough you can finish the trip with the windows down, smelling the salt air rising, the rich sulfide mud flats as you race the turning tide for the beach. Around Cushman, the salmon fishermen start showing up. They’re out in the river, trolling, pulling flashers and gobs of bait hoping for a grab, praying for a good run on the day. By the time you clear Tiernan Boat Launch, you’ve passed a whole fleet of guide boats and weekend warriors working, waiting, ready for bragging rights at the boat ramp. The haphazard fleet continues from there all the way to the bridge at the North Fork Siuslaw. Then on HWY 101 crossing back over the Siuslaw heading south. The salmon boat traffic framed against the backdrop of dunes feels a bit surreal, especially when the fog rolls in and boats come out of mist, cutting ribbons of wake over flat water.
“Casting a fly line into the mighty Pacific brings me as much joy as a forty pounder if only for the absolute absurdity of the endeavor.” Photo courtesy of Will Conable
This is the post-Labor Day scene on the coast. And, like everything else that comes with fall—Halloween, October baseball, pumpkin spice, autumn leaves, and football to name just a few—salmon fishing has its fans. Aficionados. Fanatics. Those die-hards out at the start of the season all the way to its end, braving overcast, rainy days, cold mornings and unpredictable conditions for that anadromous thrill ride.
For my part, I wish those anglers every ounce of luck I can afford to share. There are few things in this world that can top the feeling of landing a fall chinook. However, my early fall fishing interests run a little contrary to these big game ambitions. Sure, salmon get the heart racing—they’re essentially a rite of passage in the PNW like trout on the dry fly, or steelhead on the swing. But, for me, fall is also the time of the humble surf perch, of empty beaches and breaking waves, of hit and miss coastal excursions where casting a fly line into the mighty Pacific brings me as much joy as a forty pounder if only for the absolute absurdity of the endeavor.
Of all the fishing opportunities on the coast, surf perch come in as one of the more accessible options. They’re abundant. They’re willing. There are twelve different species of them along the Oregon coast. While great success—here I’m talking double digit days or limiting out on the generous 15 fish bag limit—doesn’t always come, it comes often enough to make repeat efforts worthwhile. More importantly, the equipment to get to the fish won’t break the bank.
Surf Perch. Photo courtesy of the editor
First, no boat necessary. In fact, most of surf perch are caught within twenty to fifty feet of the beach. Practically, that means if you’re fishing a gear rod that can chuck cut bait like herring or shrimp a good fifty yards over breaking waves, the risk of getting more than your calves wet on cooler fall days is low. If you’re a fly fisherman, you probably have all the gear that’s needed anyhow: a good 7wt or 8wt rod, a full sink line in the 3ips or 5ips range, some clouser minnows in chartreuse, orange, or pink, maybe a few shrimp or crab patterns if you’re feeling bold. The only piece of new equipment you’ll want is a stripping basket—a necessary thing that shouldn’t set you back more than forty dollars. Certainly, fly anglers will need to wade out a little more into the surf but not too far. Going farther than knee deep is a waste of time and probably shows you need to work on your cast more than anything else. That said, make sure you rinse and clean your gear after every trip. Salt water wreaks havoc on fishing rods and reels. Take the time to give everything a freshwater soak when you get home and you’ll be better off for the chore.
Now, just because they’re accessible does not mean surf perch fishing is as easy as a stroll on the beach. Surf perch both school and migrate. They can be somewhat elusive. However, their behaviors are predictable enough to make even the most nuts-and-bolts anglers who are willing to track a few elements increase their odds of catching instead of just fishing.
Tides come in at the top of the list. Surf perch are inshore fish. They follow the tides in and out, feeding along the curls and edges of breaking surf as ocean currents push food resources up against the beach. Practically, that means fishing either an incoming or outgoing tide. My recommendation is to fish the incoming but hit the beach at low water when all the cuts and troughs and channels are exposed. Later, as the tide rolls in, those features will be the prime feeding grounds for the fish.
Right behind the tide is a kind of beach. Aside from troughs and cuts, creeks and rock structure are great for surf perch because they provide both shelter from turbulent waters as well as rich nutrient sources for their preferred food—here, think baitfish, small sand and mole crabs, shrimp, sand fleas. This leads into the third element: food. While most people think prime sources like baitfish are always present on all beaches along the coast, that’s not the case. Just like their predators, food sources move and migrate up and down the coast with the tides, currents, and conditions. The clearest advice I can give here is to look for birds. My best days have come when shore birds like gulls and pelicans and osprey are working the surf. Pelicans and gulls are a dead giveaway for baitfish while osprey are usually hunting the surf perch, coming down like the sky’s own arrow, snatching their quarry from the waves with a grace that will make you jealous. Don’t be alarmed if you see a seal working the break as well. If they’re there, so are the fish. Keep casting. Trust the alchemy. It will pay off. Hell, even if it doesn’t, a skunked day at the coast can be rectified with some hot chowder and a stiff drink which is really just another kind of alchemy anyhow.
My first three trips this season have seen the full spectrum of the surf perch venture. They’ve ranged from lights out to straight skunked. The best day came with the toughest conditions.
Ridgeline editor Chad Shelton and I made our separate ways to the coast, agreeing to meet about an hour before slack high tide at a certain beach head to try our luck. Driving in that day, the marine layer was thick. From the 101 bridge over the Siuslaw, I could barely make out the dunes in the distance. At the pay kiosk for the beach, it looked as if the fog would break only to see a second, thicker bank roll in on the remaining drive to the dunes. Layering up for the conditions—waders, boots, rain jackets, all the accoutrement of intrepid angler/journalists slung on our backs—we hiked up the dune only to see a beach still shrouded. The fog dampened the sound of breaking waves. Park Service warnings about nesting snowy plovers changed our path down to the water’s edge. Walking, we talked about how eerie the scene was, how it felt right to be in a mist on a day where Chad hoped to catch his first fish from the ocean.
We hiked about half a mile or so to the first good section of water. Off to our right we heard waves but couldn’t see them. The evidence was there, though. A dumping shore break and long rollers coming into our ankles and knees. Facing west, we sent a few casts out as we both watched the dim shapes of seals playing in the surf. The first thirty minutes produced nothing. My heart started to drop. Fearing a skunk, I suggested we move up the beach, head back north and see what luck lay that way. The fog lifted a bit. I saw a break in the bar. A small section of the beach head showed a confused current. Shattered shells, the leftovers of a Pacific storm’s pummeling, were all around our feet. I waded in. So did Chad. More seals appeared in the waves. Then we saw the birds, pelicans, gulls.
Then we heard the feeding calls of osprey. The jubilee started. The birds all started diving into the surf only to take clumsy flight after a mouthful of herring, talons full of perch. I waded out a little farther, up to my knees, double-hauling as if my life depended on the next cast. The ground of white shells showed a school of baitfish around my feet. They’d been trapped by the tide. About the time I noticed the school, I got a grab, something solid, a fish. I set, stripping my fly line in as I backed up the beach trying to keep a bend in my rod as the perch darted in and out of the currents. After some panic, a few stumbles, and my best fish yawp in a while, I landed the first one of the day and season. A healthy redtail perch. A small dinner plate. Success.
The first surf perch of fall. Photo courtesy of the editor
Holding the fish in hand, Chad and I performed the modern ritual of photos. We are serious journalists. A few casts later, I got another one, then another. Then Chad got his first and that called for photos as well. With each catch, we cheered, laughed, celebrated. We got eager, excited. Waves broke over our chests. Chad got walloped in the middle of a big set. I took a breaking wave over the top of my waders, too. Both of us were soaked. It didn’t matter. We were catching fish and having fun, and really, what’s better than that? Not much.
The run of perch lasted until the tide turned, just about three hours. Once the sand started pulling from under our feet the bite slowed. Eventually it stopped. The bait fish left with the tide. The perch left with the bait fish. The birds left with both. The fog stayed. We walked back up the beach, climbed the dunes back to our cars. In the parking lot, we stripped off sandy gear, laughing again at how soaked through we had gotten. It had been a good day. The coast provides.
I’ve been back two times since my season opener with Chad. The first was with my buddy, Matt. He’s an accomplished angler in his own right having fished most of the waters of Northern California to the Willamette Valley all the way to the Yucatan Peninsula. We fished the same beach as my day with Chad, with the same flies, under the same tide conditions, but with different results. On Matt’s day, the ocean was calm, the day clear. We had temps in the mid-70s with barely a cloud in the sky and no wind. After four hours of pounding sand and beating the Pacific to a small froth, we came away skunked. I think Matt might have foul hooked one anchovy and screamed. Allegedly. While it’s easy to blame changed conditions for the slow day with Matt—there were no birds working, I saw no baitfish, only a single seal in the break—Occam’s razor teaches that reasons should not be multiplied beyond necessity. As such, rather than a multitude of changed conditions providing an explanation for our results, I blame Matt. He’s cursed, hexed. He needs to smudge his rod, reel, waders, and stripping basket with sage. If his luck does not turn around, he needs to seek shamanic help. That’s the only reasonable course of action. Fishermen are a superstitious lot.
Waving a stick at the ocean. Photo courtesy of Matt Arruda
My second trip was a family affair. I went back with my wife and our dog Charlie. Again, I fished a similarly rising tide with weather and ocean conditions splitting the difference between my last two trips. On that day I got a few, maybe a half dozen perch. I divided my time between the fly rod and rock hounding and chasing my dog on the beach because rocks are cool and dogs are fun to chase. It was another good coast day, one infinitely better than a lost day to a screen, a day where August doldrums finally fade and autumn’s turn felt like it arrived.
Looking ahead, I know I’ll keep going back over the next few weeks. I’ll keep my eyes set west until winter storms wash out beaches, until heavy fall and early winter rains blow the sand plugs at the mouths of coastal rivers starting the salmon and steelhead runs beyond tidewater. I’ll keep going coastal between fall trout trips because the perch will hang around for a while, because they offer something different, because an empty beach on a crisp day is another kind of wilderness worth exploring. But truth be told, the best reason for going back comes by way of change. See, I can think of few things that challenge the delusion of self-importance on our cosmic blue dot better than waving a stick at the open ocean from a beach while being buffeted, soaked, and battered by a rising tide all for the hope of catching a fish no larger than a dinner plate. There’s scale to such a thing, an absurd scale that gives perspective. Seems to me we need a little more of that absurdity these days. There’s a joy in that scale. We could use a little more of that, too. A little more of both, of the joyfully absurd. It’s certainly better than the alternative. Maybe I’ll see you out there. I hope I do.
Will Conable is a writer, the President of the McKenzie Guides Foundation, and the owner of Willamette Valley Fishing Guides (@willamettevalleyfishing on socials). When he’s not out guiding or fly fishing, he can be found at Home Waters Fly Shop in Eugene, Oregon, slinging flies and helping keep our community fishing. Stop by the shop, pick up some flies, and say hi to Will and the rest of the Home Waters crew sometime!