Fly Fishing for Calico Bass
Updated: Aug 20
A Dogtown Guide to Southern California's Home-Water Gamefish
There are fish in Southern California that get more attention. Yellowtail pull harder. White seabass carry more mystique. Bonito can turn a fly reel into a blender, and barracuda are generally more willing to destroy whatever you put in front of them.
But if you really want to understand saltwater fly fishing in Southern California, sooner
or later you need to learn how to fish for calico bass.
Not because they're exotic. Quite the opposite.
They're ours.
Calico bass—or more properly kelp bass, Paralabrax clathratus—are woven into the Southern California coastline. They live among the kelp forests, rocky reefs, boiler rocks, breakwalls and submerged structure stretching from our local beaches down through Baja. They're available year-round, they readily eat a fly, and they live in exactly the kind of ugly structure that makes catching them both incredibly fun and occasionally infuriating.
They're also one of the best teachers in saltwater fly fishing.
Calicos force you to understand current, depth, structure and presentation. They teach you that a forty-foot cast into the right piece of water is infinitely more valuable than an eighty-foot cast into nothing. They teach you to trust a sinking line when you can't see your fly. They teach you to recognize a bite that feels like nothing more than your line suddenly stopping on the way down.
And when a good one eats three feet from a kelp stalk, they teach you very quickly why a trout set has absolutely no place in this fishery.
For us, that's what makes them such a special fish.
A Southern California Fishery
Calicos are structure-oriented predators. Kelp forests are their namesake habitat, but they're equally at home around rocky reefs, ledges, breakwalls, artificial reefs and other areas that provide vertical relief and somewhere to ambush prey.
They're opportunistic feeders, and that's part of what makes them so well suited to the fly. Anchovies, sardines, smelt, juvenile mackerel, sculpin, squid and crustaceans can all end up on the menu. You don't necessarily need to perfectly imitate one particular food source. More often, you need to present something that looks edible in the right place, at the right depth, moving the right way.
Research into kelp bass movement has also shown remarkably strong attachment to habitat. Adult fish can occupy relatively small home ranges and remain associated with the same general structure for extended periods.
That's worth thinking about the next time you pull a big bass off a particular reef.
That fish didn't necessarily happen to be passing through. There's a pretty good chance that's his neighborhood.
Calicos are also incredibly slow-growing fish. California Department of Fish and Wildlife data has documented kelp bass living more than 30 years, with the oldest recorded fish reaching 34 years.
A trophy calico isn't simply a big bass.
It's an old fish that figured out how to survive.
And that deserves some respect.
The Calico Syndicate
Any serious discussion about fly fishing for calicos in Southern California deserves to acknowledge the Calico Syndicate.
More than a decade ago, a small group of Southern California saltwater fly fishermen began approaching calico fishing differently. They weren't interested in simply catching bass when conditions allowed conventional fly tackle to work. They wanted to figure out how far the fishery could actually be pushed.
Their goal was ambitious: catch a double-digit calico on fly tackle.
That meant reaching fish that weren't necessarily sitting ten feet below the boat.
The Syndicate began experimenting with sinking lines, flies and equipment specifically designed around Southern California kelp bass fishing. During that process, the crew worked through dozens of different sinking-line configurations while trying to effectively reach calicos holding 40 to 60 feet down in heavy current, kelp and rock.
Eventually they were casting systems approaching 800 to 950 grains on 10-weight rods.
That's absurd by normal fly-fishing standards.
It's also brilliant.
You absolutely do not need to throw a 900-grain head to catch calicos. Most anglers shouldn't.
The important part of what the Syndicate was doing wasn't simply the amount of weight they could get onto a fly rod. It was their willingness to stop accepting the traditional limitations of fly tackle.
If the fish were fifty feet down, they wanted to fish fifty feet down.
If the available equipment didn't accomplish that, they experimented until something did.
That mindset remains incredibly relevant to how we approach calicos today.
Structure First
If there is one thing to understand before making your first cast, it's that calico fishing revolves around structure.
Kelp edges, individual stringers, pockets within a kelp bed, submerged reefs, rock-to-sand transitions, boiler rocks, breakwalls, ledges and high spots are all worth investigating. Add current and bait to that structure and things get considerably more interesting.
One of the most common mistakes new calico anglers make is fishing near structure instead of fishing in it.
There's a difference.
A fly landing six or eight feet outside a kelp stringer may look plenty close from the casting deck. To a calico buried underneath that kelp, it might as well be in another zip code.
Get the fly tight.
Put it into the lanes between the kelp. Drop it beside individual stalks. Cast into the wash around boiler rocks. Put it alongside the breakwall.
You're going to lose flies.
That's part of the deal.
If you're never hanging up, there's a decent chance you're not fishing close enough.
Read the Water, Not Just the Tide Chart
Structure tells you where calicos live. Current often tells you when they're going to eat.
Moving water concentrates food and creates predictable feeding positions. When current runs across a reef, through kelp or around a rock, calicos can position themselves outside the main flow and wait for food to come to them.
The kelp itself is one of the easiest current indicators available.
When kelp is standing nearly vertical, there may be very little movement. When the stalks are laid over in one direction, you know water is moving.
Now start looking at what that moving water is doing.
Where does it hit the kelp? Where does it wrap around a point? Where is the softer water? Where does the current push bait against structure?
That's where you want to fish.
More current isn't automatically better. Eventually the water can move so quickly that getting a fly down becomes difficult. What you're really searching for is fishable current—enough movement to activate the reef without making the presentation impossible.
And don't become married to what the tide chart told you should be happening.
Look at the water in front of you.
The ocean gets the final say.
Depth Is the Game
Fly fishermen love talking about flies.
With calicos, we'd argue the fly line is often more important.
You can tie the greatest sculpin pattern ever created, but if the bass are sitting twenty-five feet down and your fly is swimming eight feet below the surface, it doesn't really matter.
The first question should always be:
Where are the fish?
Then choose the system that puts the fly there.
For shallow kelp, reefs and boilers, we're big fans of the Scientific Anglers SONAR Titan Full Intermediate. An intermediate line lets you work immediately below the surface without dragging the fly through the water column too quickly. It's a great tool for shallow kelp, active summer fish and situations where the bass are willing to come up and chase.
When the fish move deeper, we move into the heavier Scientific Anglers SONAR sinking systems.
The goal isn't to own every sink rate ever manufactured.
It's to have enough range to cover the water you're actually fishing.
Shallow fish might call for an intermediate. Mid-water fish need something substantially faster. Deep reef may require a much heavier sinking system.
That's the lesson the Calico Syndicate pushed to its logical extreme:
The fly only works if it reaches the fish.
Learn Your Sink
Once the fly hits the water, resist the urge to immediately start stripping.
Let it sink.
Count.
One thousand one.
One thousand two.
One thousand three.
Keep going.
Pay attention to what happens.
Maybe you're occasionally touching kelp on a twelve-count. Maybe you're finding bottom at eighteen. Maybe every bite happens between eight and ten.
That's information.
Over time you begin developing a mental picture of where your fly is in the water column even though you can't see it.
That's one of the biggest differences between casting a sinking line and actually fishing a sinking line.
The exact sink rate printed on the box is useful, but it isn't the whole story. Current, boat drift, fly weight, leader length and the amount of line in the water all affect where your fly actually ends up.
You have to learn your system.
Once you do, you can begin repeating productive presentations instead of simply casting and hoping.
The Eat
One of our favorite things about calico fishing is how differently they can eat a fly.
Sometimes there's absolutely no question.
The line comes tight and the fish tries to return your rod to the ocean.
Other times, almost nothing happens.
Your sinking line stops sinking. It twitches. It moves sideways. It suddenly feels slightly heavier.
Calicos frequently eat a fly on the drop, which means staying connected during the sink is incredibly important.
If something feels different, strip.
Worst case, you've moved your fly six inches.
Best case, something moves back.
And when something does move back:
Strip set.
Do not raise the rod.
Strip until you're connected and then use the rod to apply pressure. A trout set gives a calico exactly what it wants—time to turn around and go home.
And home is usually three feet away.
The Retrieve
There is no single correct retrieve for calicos.
Some days they want speed. Other days the fly can barely move.
Short aggressive strips can be deadly around active fish. Long, slower pulls keep a baitfish swimming steadily. Two quick strips followed by a pause can make a weighted sculpin kick forward and then fall. Sometimes the best retrieve is almost no retrieve at all.
The important part is paying attention to what happened immediately before the bite.
If three fish eat while the fly is falling after two strips and a pause, that's probably not a coincidence.
They just told you something.
Listen.
Also remember that you don't necessarily need to fish every cast all the way back to the boat. If you're targeting a ten-foot-wide pocket between two kelp stringers, that pocket is the important part of the presentation.
Fish the good water properly.
Then pick it up and put it back in there.
Flies: Keep It Simple
Calico flies don't need to be complicated.
They need to survive, get into the zone and give a fish a reason to eat them.
Sculpin patterns are a staple for good reason. They're bulky, they push water, they can carry weight and they look alive without having to move very far. Olive, brown, rust, orange, yellow and black all have a place in the box.
Baitfish patterns should represent the usual Southern California suspects: anchovies, sardines, smelt and small mackerel. Clouser-style patterns, Half-and-Halfs, EP-style baitfish and articulated streamers can all be effective.
Squid patterns absolutely deserve space in the box as well. When squid are around, almost everything in Southern California wants to eat them.
And when pelagic red crabs show up, pay attention. Red and orange patterns fished slowly or allowed to sink can be incredibly useful when the entire food chain switches over to crabs.
But what a calico fly looks like is only part of the equation.
How that fly behaves in the water can be every bit as important.
Noise matters.
Calicos are territorial fish. Put something intrusive into their space and the reaction doesn't necessarily have to come from hunger. Sometimes you've simply pissed one off.
They're also curious.
A fly moving through kelp, deeper water, low light or dirty water isn't relying solely on its visual profile. Noise, vibration and water displacement can all help a fish locate—or react to—something moving through its territory.
That should change the way we think about calico flies.
Don't be afraid to incorporate rattles.
Don't be afraid of under-spin elements.
Don't be afraid to use materials and designs that push water, vibrate, flash or generally make their presence known.
And don't be afraid to look outside fly fishing for ideas.
Conventional calico fishermen have spent decades figuring out how to trigger these fish with vibration, blades, rattles, flash and water displacement. Fly fishermen sometimes have a bad habit of pretending the rest of the fishing world doesn't exist.
That's a mistake.
Look at what successful conventional guys are doing. Figure out why it works. Then ask whether the same principle can be incorporated into a fly.
Even something as simple as the weed guard can contribute.
The Calico Syndicate ties its weed guards with 80-pound hard mono. That heavy mono has enough backbone to help the fly work through kelp and structure, but according to Keith, it also creates noise as the fly moves through the water.
That's a pretty cool way of looking at something most of us consider purely functional.
The weed guard isn't just keeping the hook clean.
It's potentially becoming part of the fly's footprint.
The larger lesson is to stop judging a calico fly solely by how it looks sitting in your hand.
Ask what it does once it gets wet.
How does it move?
How much water does it push?
Does it vibrate?
Does it flash?
Does it make noise?
What does that fly's presence feel like to a bass sitting underneath a mat of kelp?
Sometimes subtle is right.
Sometimes you're trying to imitate an anchovy.
And sometimes you're just trying to piss off a territorial calico.
Don't be afraid to make some noise.
Weed Guards: Fish the Fly Where It Belongs
If you're fishing calicos properly, you're eventually going to put your fly somewhere stupid.
That's a good thing.
Kelp, rock and reef are where these fish live, which means a calico fly needs to be designed around actually fishing that structure.
We strongly recommend weed guards on the majority of flies intended for heavy kelp and reef work. As mentioned above, the Calico Syndicate uses 80-pound hard mono, which gives the guard enough stiffness to protect the hook while still allowing the fly to be fished aggressively through cover.
Will a weed guard occasionally cost you a fish?
Probably.
But a fly permanently attached to a kelp stalk catches considerably fewer.
A good weed guard gives you confidence to make the cast you otherwise wouldn't make.
And that cast is often the one that gets eaten.
Choosing a Rod
For Southern California calico fishing, we primarily look at 9- and 10-weight rods.
Not because you need a 10-weight to fight a two-pound bass.
You need the rod to cast the system.
Heavy sinking lines, weighted flies, large baitfish patterns, wind and repeated casting put considerably more demand on the rod than the size of the average fish would suggest.
For someone getting into this fishery, the ECHO ION XL is difficult to beat. In a 9- or 10-weight, it's a capable saltwater tool without requiring someone to spend a fortune to get started.
If you want to step into a faster, more powerful rod, our choice is the ECHO EPR. It's built for exactly the kind of work we're talking about here: big flies, heavy lines and wind.
For most people, we'd start with a 9-weight.
It's enough rod to throw the majority of calico setups without making a full day of casting unnecessarily miserable.
If you're regularly fishing heavier sinking systems, deeper water and larger flies, there's a strong argument for moving to the 10-weight.
There's another reason to bring enough rod.
Yellowtail happen.
Bonito happen.
Barracuda happen.
White seabass happen.
The Pacific occasionally rewards poor planning.
Keep the Leader Simple
This isn't permit fishing.
Leave the twelve-foot hand-tied fluorocarbon sculpture at home.
For most calico fishing, a short leader somewhere in the neighborhood of three to six feet of 16- to 25-pound mono or fluorocarbon gets it done.
Short leaders also help the fly follow the sinking line. A long leader can allow the fly to hang considerably higher in the water column than the line you're working so hard to sink.
Strong.
Short.
Simple.
That's the program.
Once You're Connected, Pull
A good calico doesn't need fifty feet of line to beat you.
Sometimes it needs three.
Once you've strip-set and come tight, the first few seconds are critical. The fish knows exactly where the nearest kelp stalk, ledge or hole is.
You don't.
Keep the rod relatively low, use the butt section and apply pressure immediately. If you need to strip the fish toward you instead of putting it onto the reel, do it.
Getting a calico onto the reel is considerably less important than getting it away from structure.
Separate the fish from its home first.
Admire it later.
Boat Position Is Part of the Cast
Fishing from a boat gives you an enormous advantage, but only if the boat is in the right place.
Before making a drift, look at the structure and ask where the current is moving, where the fly will sink, where the boat will be twenty seconds from now and where a hooked fish is likely to run.
A perfect cast from the wrong boat position is still a bad presentation.
Sometimes the best move is running back around and resetting the drift rather than forcing another cast from a bad angle.
When we're fishing kelp, we're looking for individual targets rather than treating the entire forest as one giant piece of structure. Pockets, lanes, outside edges, isolated stringers and little openings with current moving through them are all places worth making a cast.
Boiler fishing is similar but considerably more chaotic. Watch the surge, put the fly into the wash, let it fall off the edge and stay connected.
And don't get greedy.
No calico is worth putting the boat on the rocks.
The Fishery Changes with the Seasons
Calicos can be caught twelve months a year in Southern California, but that doesn't mean we fish them the same way in January as we do in August.
Spring begins bringing changes in water temperature, bait and fish behavior. As conditions improve, fish become increasingly active around kelp and shallow reef.
By summer, the entire system can come alive. Kelp beds become incredibly productive, bait concentrates around structure and bass can move surprisingly high in the water column. Summer also overlaps with the peak of the broader calico spawning season.
This can be some of the most exciting fishing of the year because an intermediate line and baitfish pattern suddenly become legitimate tools around structure that required a much heavier system a few months earlier.
Fall shouldn't be overlooked either.
Warm water can stick around well beyond Labor Day, and some of our best local fishing can happen while everyone else has mentally moved on from summer.
Winter is when understanding sinking lines really pays off.
The fish haven't disappeared.
Sometimes they've simply moved downstairs.
Find the deeper reef, get the fly into the zone and slow down enough to actually fish it.
Find the Food
You can find the prettiest kelp bed in Southern California and catch absolutely nothing.
Then pull up to some ugly little piece of reef covered in anchovies and have one of the best calico sessions of your life.
Food matters.
Watch the birds.
Watch the meter.
Look for anchovies dimpling on the surface, mackerel flashing underneath the boat and bait collecting against current edges.
Even the sea lions can tell you something when they suddenly become interested in one particular patch of water.
The ocean is constantly giving you information.
The better you get at noticing it, the less random this fishery becomes.
The Calico Syndicate Mindset
This might be the biggest lesson of all.
What made the Calico Syndicate interesting wasn't simply that they built ridiculously heavy fly lines or tied flies differently.
It was why they did it.
They weren't trying to determine the accepted way to fly fish for calicos.
They were trying to determine the most effective way.
When the available fly lines couldn't reach the fish, they experimented with different lines.
When conventional flies weren't doing what they wanted, they changed the flies.
And when conventional anglers were doing something that worked, they paid attention.
That last part is important.
Fly fishing can become an echo chamber. We have our own equipment, terminology, traditions and ideas about how things are supposed to be done. But the calico doesn't care whether the idea came from a fly fisherman, a tournament bass angler or somebody throwing plastics from a skiff.
If it teaches you something about how the fish behaves, it's worth paying attention to.
Take the principle.
Adapt it to the fly rod.
Go test it.
That's the Syndicate mindset.
Experiment.
Change the sink rate.
Change the countdown.
Change the retrieve.
Change the fly.
Add a rattle.
Try an under-spin.
Move the boat.
Try deeper.
Try shallower.
Fish the piece of structure everyone else drove past.
Some of it won't work.
Good.
Now you know.
Change something and go again.
We're fishing an ocean. Conditions change constantly.
There isn't supposed to be one answer.
Figure it out.
Slow to Grow, So Let 'Em Go
This part matters.
A trophy calico isn't replaced next season.
These fish grow slowly and can live for decades. A genuinely large bass may have occupied the same general reef system for years before you ever put a fly in front of it.
California regulations allow legal harvest of calico bass, and what someone chooses to legally keep is ultimately their decision.
At Dogtown, we're putting the big ones back.
Fight them hard and land them quickly. Wet your hands. Support the fish properly. Get your photo and get it back in the water.
There are plenty of things in the ocean worth eating.
A twenty-year-old calico doesn't need to be one of them.
Slow to grow. Let 'em go.
The Dogtown Calico Setup
If somebody walked into Dogtown tomorrow and asked us to build one setup to start seriously fishing calicos, we'd keep it straightforward.
Start with a 9-weight ECHO ION XL or ECHO EPR.
The ION XL gives you an affordable and forgiving way into the fishery. The EPR gives you considerably more power when you're throwing heavy sinking lines and larger flies.
For most anglers, we'd start with the 9-weight.
If you're consistently fishing deeper reefs, particularly heavy sinking systems and bigger flies, step into the 10.
Pair it with a quality saltwater reel and plenty of backing. Calicos themselves rarely require an elaborate big-game drag system, but this is Southern California. A yellowtail or bonito occasionally has a way of grabbing the fly you intended for a bass.
For shallow work, we'd spool a Scientific Anglers SONAR Titan Full Intermediate.
For deeper reef and kelp, move into an appropriate Scientific Anglers SONAR sinking system capable of putting the fly where the fish actually are.
Add roughly three to six feet of 20-pound leader and a box containing weedless sculpins, baitfish, squid and a couple of red or orange patterns for crab events.
Then add a few flies that are a little different.
A rattle.
An under-spin.
Something bulky that pushes water.
Something you looked at and thought, That's probably a little ridiculous.
Good.
Throw that one too.
That's really all you need.
You could spend years figuring out the rest.
Our Home-Water Fish
There are more glamorous fish.
There are fish that pull harder (only a few)
. Fish that require airplanes, passports, pangas, guides, lodges and several thousand dollars worth of questionable financial decisions.
Calicos live down the street.
That's exactly why we love them.
They represent everything we think Southern California saltwater fly fishing should be.
A little unconventional. A little dirty.
Heavy sinking lines piled across the deck. Big ugly flies. Kelp hanging off everything. Boiler rocks. Small boats. Cold Pacific water. Salt-covered reels.
And a fish absolutely unwilling to accept the fact that you're holding the other end of the line.
The Calico Syndicate understood something important years ago: these fish shouldn't be treated as something you catch when nothing better is around. They're a legitimate saltwater gamefish worthy of specialized tackle, experimentation and a healthy amount of obsession.
We're still building on that idea.
Calico fishing isn't supposed to be clean. You're going to hang flies in the kelp, bounce them off rocks, wrap shooting line around your feet and occasionally watch a good fish bury you before you can do a damn thing about it.
But somewhere between learning the current, figuring out your sink, experimenting with a fly that looks completely wrong and finally putting that fly exactly where it needs to be, the whole thing starts to make sense.
That's what keeps us coming back.
These fish have been living in our kelp forests and reefs long before any of us picked up a fly rod, and they'll still be there tomorrow if we take care of them.
So fish hard. Pay attention. Experiment. Learn from the guys who came before us. Learn from the conventional guys fishing beside us. Put the big ones back. And don't be afraid to lose a few flies along the way.
This is our water. These are our fish. And this is Southern California fly fishing.
A Quick Thank You
A special thank you to the members of the Calico Syndicate — Keith Munemitsu, Dave Valadez, Capt. Bill Calhoun, Adam Perez, Capt. Vaughn Podmore, and Tod Suttle — as well as Jeff Priest.
Their willingness to experiment, challenge convention, and share decades of hard-earned knowledge has helped shape the way calico bass are targeted on the fly in Southern California today. Dogtown is proud to learn from the anglers who helped push this fishery forward and to carry that knowledge into the next generation of Southern California fly fishing.
— Dogtown Fly Co.
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