Welcome to The Dogtown Dispatch

You found it. The Dogtown Dispatch — your boots-in-the-sand, salt-in-your-teeth weekly rundown of what’s happening along the Southern California coast.

This is where you’ll find honest reports from the crew who’s actually out there — lines wet, eyes on the water, feeling the pull (or the skunk) just like you. Every week, we’ll be dropping straight intel on tides, wind, water temps, bait movement, and fish behavior. No hype. No honey holes. Just the conditions, observations, and instincts you need to hunt smarter and fish harder.

We’re covering it all — from the kelp-dragging points of Ventura to the flat, troughy beaches of San Diego. That includes L.A., OC, and everywhere in between. If it’s got sand and surf, we’ve got eyes on it.

We’re not here to hand out turn-by-turn directions. This isn’t about spot-burning. It’s about building knowledge and sharpening instincts. Giving fly anglers the tools to make their own calls, read water like a book, and show up ready to throw down — whether that means a long solo mission or a dawn patrol with your crew.

The Dispatch is for the ones who live for those glassy mornings and blown-out afternoons. For the fly fishers who can pick out a cruising corbina from 30 feet and aren’t afraid to crawl for it. For the stubborn, the gritty, and the obsessed. For the ones who’d rather get skunked chasing the right fish than rack numbers on the wrong water.

This is surf fly culture, raw and unfiltered. A weekly pulse check for a community that’s growing stronger, stranger, and saltier by the day.

Tides change. Fish move. Conditions shift. But we’ll be right there in it — just like you.

Stay sharp. Stay loose. See you on the sand.

Post Cards from the Break

Los Angeles: July 14–20, 2025

The early part of the week had some juice. Monday through Wednesday gave us clean mornings, light winds, and just enough tide push to get fish moving. Low tides cracked off before dawn and rolled into a mid-morning high — classic setup. The surf stayed low, and the sun showed up, which meant one thing: sight game was on.

It wasn’t easy though. The bite windows were short. You had to be dialed — watching fish cruise, waiting for that one small window where they turned on. If you weren’t locked in, it passed you by.

Midweek into the weekend, things shifted. On paper, the tides looked prime — good swings, well-timed lows — but Mother Pacific had other plans. Swell built up, wind showed face early, and the sun ghosted us.

Water got pushed around, clarity tanked, and any shot at visual game turned into a guessing match. Sight fishing? Few and far between. You had to flip the script — pull back, slow down, and go full detective.

It became a game of vicinity casting — watching nervous water, shadowy flashes, subtle body language. Fish weren’t giving anything away. You had to dissect their patterns and drop a fly where they were going, not where they’d been. No random chucks. It was patience, timing, and stealth — or nothing.

Key Takeaways:

• Early week: Clear mornings, small surf, good tide swing.

• Late week/weekend: Dirty water, overcast skies, wind chop.

• Best shot: First 1.5 hours of incoming tide, before wind blew out.

• Approach: Stealth mode. Soft steps. Long leaders. Small profiles.

In short? You had to earn it this week. Conditions flirted with perfect, then slammed the door. But if you were there, paying attention, and kept your fly honest — you might’ve walked off the beach with your soul fed.

Jason Minderler tight on a vicinity cast Corbina 07/20