Calhoun's Coastal Fly Fishing Report

03/07/10

This Sunday I took out Raphael Heldman, a fourteen year old gentleman who started fly fishing a year ago. He's been taking casting lessons from Lee Baermann from Fly Fish the Surf guide service. As soon as Raphael began casting the 250 grain shooting head it became obvious that Lee is an accomplished casting instructor and Raphael is a great student. On his first cast Raphael hooked, fought and landed his first calico bass.

I was a little apprehensive to take Raphael on this day because the conditions on paper didn't look promising. There was a neap tide which didn't produce much current, there wasn't much of a forecasted swell to push water and it was just after a storm which cooled the water down a couple degrees. If I hadn't been out on a good bight just a few days before, I may have canceled the trip.

Nevertheless, Raphael continued catching bass during the morning hours. Although nothing huge was caught it was an aggressive morning bite with some legal sized fish mixed in. As the bite slowed we went looking for signs of bait in the shallows along the coast and found none, so we didn't try for halibut. With the wind picking up we decided to fish Los Alamitos Harbor where Raphael lost a good size spotted bay bass on a clouser that he tied. I was impressed with the quality of his hand tied flies and surprisingly, he is self taught. I have no doubt that Raphael will be catching many spotted bay bass in the future as well as anything else that will eat a fly.

Next time someone asks me how long it will take them to learn how to fly fish, I will be using Raphael as a good example.

" First Cast - First Calico"