David Siskind | Sunday, 29 June 2025
It's been a fraught week. A bad moon is rising, anxiety spiking. Other unpleasantness also showed up. Some from ignoring my mail for six weeks - a surprise tax bill and notice of lapsed parking permits were in the pile, Add oppressive heat and you have a party. An approaching wedding requires new clothes so I went shopping, which always leaves me with a feeling of loneliness and worry. I’m surrounded by loving people but when high anxiety takes hold it’s hard to shake - I become reactive and unskillful. Time to go fishing! - so I went to the beach looking for corbina. Always helps.
I walked a familiar stretch at dawn, Tuesday. There was a minus tide - all week. The sand crab beds at first were not obvious. They were tighter to the sand and I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I decided to go with a worm fly until I swung an angled cast and snagged a juicy crab and, duh, saw the beds all over the place. I saw some corbina swirling tight against the sand but spent most of my time walking the beach looking at structure, finding channels and holes which had moved and formed over the winter. Please don’t imagine that I have any expertise here but I am learning. As the tide rose to 1.5 feet, I started seeing little patches of nervous water then fish everywhere. I had a lot of shots but because the water is moving randomly, I’m not sure any fish were seeing my fly. Finally mid-morning, the sun appeared and fish were easily visible on a flat at the northwestern end of the beach.
Wednesday the fish again appeared first to the south in some channels that paralleled the beach as soon as there was enough water outside. As the water rose sightings moved further north and west along the beach, ending, finally, on the flat. So, having figured all of this out, I went again Thursday early and an hour later and caught my first corbina (smallish) of the season in the channels to the southeast, then followed the fish sightings. These guys are difficult to feed and after the first eat, I struck out. It’s early in the season and the beaches are not yet crowded, but a fellow flyfisher approached from the south (where did he park?). We chatted and fished side-by-side as the sun came out and lit up the fish on the flat. Many shots, no fish. He told me he summered in Aspen and guided wading fishers there so we exchanged information and I looked him up when I got home. John Dietsch is a producer, writer and guide who is best known for supervising the fishing scenes in A River Runs Through It. Of course. Delightful fellow, Only in LA. Throws some sexy loops.
Casting note: I emphasized the feeling of pulling the line and flinging it (see Paul’s recent video “Rod Loading Red Herring” 3:00 min in), and was making accurate casts, at all angles and distances. I was using a full sinking line that I often find troublesome. I’ll take this ‘swing-thought” to the park tomorrow morning and explore its meaning on the grass.
David Siskind