The First One Surf Fly Beach Classic at Dockweiller Beach

This is a shot of the post registration and fly draw at the very first One Surf Fly Beach Classic. Al Q. is going over the rules of the tournament with the participants. We had 29 anglers at Dockweiller Beach, varying in experience from one month old beginners to seasoned anglers. Our recipient of the fundraiser was Heal The Bay. We were able to raise $985 dollars in raffle ticket sales, and The Fly Fisherman Spot rounded out the total donations to $1000. Dockweiller Beach is a unique beach in the sense that we had jet liners flying over our heads every minute to two minute intervals. All conversations paused as the jets took off over this beach at LAX. There was a fog bank that clung to the sand dunes just at the end of the runway, which made for a chilling picture whenever a jet burst out of the fog over our heads, blasting us with the roar of jets. The conditions of the surf was not too bad at all. It was a 1 to 2 foot chop with no shape whatsoever for the shore pounders. There were lots of wash, but the long shore current was weak. The fish were biting as Tim Postel caught the first fish in less than 5 minutes after the start of the competition. Dave Watchford caught the most fish as well as the biggest fish; a sub-legal halibut. Nick Vargas got a special prize for donating the fly that caught the most fish. This was really neat since Nick had just started to fly fish the surf that year. We had halibut caught along with lots of barred surf perch, and some yellow fin croakers.

Young anglers and old fishing together. We did measure the young one to make sure he was of legal size

No waders required in Southern California's cool comfortable surf.

The big little guy that took big fish honors. A California Halibut caught by Dave Watchford. Michelle doing her measuring duties.

One Surf Fly On Front Page Of North American Fly Fishing Forum

My Friend Paul Sharman is involved with the web development of the North American Fly Fishing Forum from the UK. HE was kind enough to put us on the front page news events. Guys go check it out. It looks like a really nice forum that will get you globally connected. I do hope that they ( Fish and Fly UK ) will be able to publish something like the Fish and Fly USA publication. That was a beautiful layout with some great stories.

http://www.theflyfishingforum.com/news/one_surf_fly.html

One Surf Fly Beach Classic Comes to Surf Town USA

We are putting on a friendly fly fishing in the surf tournament that is free. We will have a raffle at Bob Marriott’s fly shop afterward to raise money for the Southern Chapter of Trout Unlimited for the steelhead recovery of the Orange county river (creek) drainages. 100% of the raffle money will go to TU for the steelhead recovery.

Check in is at 6:00 am to 6:50 am. Fishing starts from 7:00 am to 9:30 am. There will be three categories to win a trophy: 1) first fish, 2) largest fish, 3) most fish. The bonus prize will be for the winning fly will also win a prize. The raffle will be $5 for a ticket or five tickets for $20. All of the prizes are being donated by fly fishing tackle manufactures, custom fly tiers, and guides and fly shops from the LA and Orange County area.

The concept of a one fly tournament is that the entrant will only have one fly to fish the tournament with. Once that fly is lost they are done for the remainder of the tournament. In our one fly tournament each entrant will provide one surf fly when they register. All flies will be place in a blacked out bag. Once everyone is registered the flies will be drawn randomly from the bag by the entrant in the order of registration. That will be the only fly (to be casted with only a fly rod) the entrant can use. There are no other terminal tackle restrictions.

The One Fly Surf Tournament will support our local Trout Unlimited Chapter (South Coast Chapter Trout Unlimited or SCCTU http://www.southcoasttu.org/ ). SCCTU has been heavily involved with the restoration of San Mateo Creek the empties into the ocean at the famous rail road trestles bridge in San Clemete. There is work on riparian habitat restoration, erosion control and the biggest project is to get fish ladders built. New interpretation signs have been installed with the help of eagle scouts giving the history, steelhead biological information and the local riparian environment.

These are the T-shirts for the event. The only difference will be the color of the shirts. For the Huntington Beach Classic the shirt color will be lime green. All pre-orders must be in by Nov. 4th 2009. The cost of the shirts are $20 and $22 for XXL or XXXL . You can email me with your orders at sschung@hotmail.com.