Surf Perch

Not kayak fishing but there is a lot of general fishing expertise on the forum.

I am thinking this is a fall/winter fishery for when the urge to fish becomes unbearable.  Both Ocean Shores and Long Beach seem to be good locations.  Pair of waders or even the dry suit to stay warm and dry.

When?  Where?  Gear?  Tackle?

Anyone enjoy this fishing?

Glenedin Beach is a great spot in OR.  Long light surf rod and some #2 hooks with sand shrimp or clams for bait.

Yep, and also the beaches at Westport and Grayland. There's even two surf perch fishing contests a year out here now, one in the Spring, and one in the late Summer. A gentleman named Jim Jackson, who can be found at Angler Charters in Westport, is one of the sponsers. He'll be glad to fix you up with the right stuff and shares info willingly, as he likes to see people have a good time fishing. He has a nice little assortment of perch and jetty fishing tackle in the charter office, too. Actually has a skookum little tackle shop going there, with the right stuff for most types of fishing in this area, except that his prices are a little higher than the big stores for some items, due to the small size of his operation, seasonality of business out here (dies in Winter), and the convenient location.

I used to fish perch a lot. Not much any more. I have good luck starting after the low tide change and fishing the incoming tide. This gives you a chance to survey the beach at low tide and get a look at the "beach structure," which is often subtle. You want to fish troughs and depressions where food is getting washed to by the incoming waves. Or alongside jetties.
Perch move around a lot. If you aren't getting any action or hits, you must move and find another good looking spot. They travel in schools and are opportunistic feeders, having to eek out a living in the turbid surf zone. They pick up anything that looks like food, and quickly spit out anything that isn't. You must be quick setting the hook. They are good bait stealers and will rob you of all your sand shrimp.
Fishing early mornings is usally best, and this can trump tide timing. There's less wind most mornings, too, and casting into strong onshore wind is no fun at all.
I use 3/4 oz or 1oz sliding barrel sinkers so that they can roll in the current, and usually only one leader/hook. Some guys like pyramid sinkers with 2 leaders coming off above the weight.

Winter fishing for surf perch should be planned during periods of low surf. (I only fish for them in the Spring and Summer). The perch will move too far from the beach during large surf conditons, as they don't want to stay in the whitewater zone and get washed...too much energy wasted. They prefer to avoid the main turbulence. You want to fish the edges of the whitewater, in troughs or rips.

A cool website (unfortunately, not many current entries, but has a lot of good perch fishing knowledge) is zenflyfishing.com. Although it approaches surf perch fishing from the fly angling side, on the beaches S of San Francisco, it has a lot of good info that can be applied to fishing for the Red Tails up here in WA.

If WDFW schedules a morning razor clam dig on the ocean beaches, bring your perch rod and waders (and wading belt and dry top) or wetsuit/drysuit/whatever and fish right after digging!

Summer is nice, because it isn't winter.  But ...  the fish are there in the winter too.  Winter time storms tend to dig out nice structure.  Find the structure, find the fish ... although you can also blind fish walking the beach and eventually find them.

Ocean Shores ... on the inside, right off the sand spit by the harbor.  You can dig sand shrimp on the inside of the spin, and fish the surf on the outside.

Kalaloch ... I can never remember which beach, but there's a decent surf fishery here.

Westport.  Start at the jetty and fish the beach to the south.

Ilwaco.  From the jetty north. There is a rock outcrop to the north of the jetty that you can scramble out on when the surf is not up too much.  I like that little spot.

A lot of baits work at various time better than others.  I've fished with pile worms, sand worms, earthworms, sand shrimp, market shrimp, salad shrimp, clams of various types, mussels, squid strips.  I do the pyramid sinker (2-4 ounces) thing with bait, but I've also done the egg sinker.  The past few years, I've gone to the egg sinker and just use a 1.5" curly tail grub in  (Motor Oil Red Flake) or Perch Power with light tackle (steelhead float rod).  Walk the beach and cast away.  It's relaxing just thinking about it.

-Allen

Hope WetWhopper is reading this, he's told me he couldnt find places near him to fish.... 

I saw a guy get some on a cold day in December last year, when the surf was small, near the Jetty in Westport. Sandshrimp was the bait he used, as I recall.
I bought some of those 2" curly tail Berkley "Power Grubs" in "pumkinseed" this Summer. Tried 'em once recently, but arrived too late on the incoming tide for that particular spot. Perch had stopped biting and moved on, and all I got were some sculpins. I might give it another go. I use my light/med 8'6" steelhead drift rod, but a longer float rod would be better
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The serious surf perch anglers are using braided lines for surf perch now, as you want to eliminate any stretch in the line. The breaking waves and moving water will stretch mono and bow it out more, making it harder to feel the strikes. What ever line you use, you want to keep it tight (by slowly reeling in with egg sinkers...pyramids will often hold the bottom) and strike at any suspected take.

A couple of those Kalaloch beaches are good for perch, but I like Trail 4, as it has a restroom in the parking lot and an easy trail down the cliff to the beach. There's also the possibility of good longboard waves there, too.

Hey! I can't think about those bait stealers right now... I've got other fishies swimming higher in the priority column .

Surf Perching sounds like a good time, but if I drove all the way to the coast without my new yak I'd be sort of thinking, and my wife saying, WTF?

Last summer (08) I used my yak to catch surf perch.  Sat just outside the last breaking wave and cast into the back of the waves.  It worked fine but I was always paranoid a sneaker wave would catch me when I wasn't looking.  Only did it twice as an experiment.

It worked fine but I was always paranoid a sneaker wave would catch me when I wasn't looking.  Only did it twice as an experiment.

Interesting fishing style. I bet that would be pretty spooky.

Perching is a lot of fun and always have a good time with it. Those little buggers are nice and scrappy especially when you grub fish it. They are pretty darn tasty too. I would think of using my drysuit but really scared to get sand in the zipper. If it ceased up that would be a spendy fix. Good thing to remember about perch is that they run is some pretty shallow water so it's not always necessary to go waist deep. I've caught nice slabs in less than 2 FOW.

Z

I'm heading to South Beach SP in November.  I'm hoping to do some surf and pier fisher around the S. Jetty.  Do people ever have good luck there?