8 Crazy Things Surf Anglers See Every Year
If you fish the surf long enough, you’re bound to see some crazy things. Today, I want to talk about some of the crazy things that you might not expect to see in the surf, but that you might just happen to see anyway.
This is just a short list and I’m sure I’m leaving out so many other crazy things, but I’ll briefly explain each below. If I missed something notable, let me know in the comments!
Great White Sharks
Yes, we have great whites up and down our coastline. If you go chat with a lifeguard, ask them how often they have sightings and I’d bet it’s more than once a week.
Seeing a great white cruising from an aerial perspective (bluffs, lookout points, etc.) is one thing but if you get lucky, you might just happen to see one breach. Sometimes no more than a couple hundred yards off shore, great whites will launch themselves out of the water and land on their backs.
I’ve seen two breaches and I have to admit it, it’s unlike anything you’ve likely seen before. I’ve also seen numerous great whites just cruising our waters on calm days and I hooked a great white shark one time that went airborne.
Jumping Fish
This actually goes along the same lines as the great white breaches. Every now and again, you’ll be looking out at the water, minding your own business, and a fish will jump clear out of the water! Right in front of you! A couple of the most common species that are known for this (in So Cal) will be mullet, jacksmelt (along with smaller bait fish), and even halibut.
In the video above, my buddy and I were watching halibut jump out of the water as they attacked baitfish on the surface. We would then cast where we saw them jump and we successfully hooked up numerous times.
Fish Beaching Themselves
This one has been mentioned before. Usually during the hours of dawn and dusk, on a warm summer day, you might see corbina, spotfin croaker, and guitarfish cruising in only inches of water as they feed on sand crabs.
That’s not the craziest part though. Every once in a while, they get a little too confident and momentarily beach themselves. I’ve caught a couple fish by hand because of how shallow they come so be on the lookout!
In the video above, I show a day where spotfin croaker were visible in the shallows and how I sight casted for a big spotfin croaker.
Fish All Over The Sand
I’ve mentioned grunion runs numerous times on this website. If you’ve never heard about this phenomenon or you’d like to learn how to see one, check out the linked article. This is a very cool event that’s specific to So Cal where small baitfish end up spawning on the sand in the middle of the night.
Dolphins Being Dolphins
Everybody knows you can expect to see dolphins if you go to the beach, but have you ever seen one do a flip? And no, Sea World doesn’t count.
I’m not messing with you here. While I couldn’t find a video of it, you’ll see them do all sorts of things. Starting with surfing in waves and jumping high out of the water to even doing full-on front flips!
Nature is pretty dang cool and these things aren’t just smart. They’re athletic too!
Hundreds Of Rays In Shallow Water
To my knowledge, every summer the bat ray population here in So Cal makes some sort of large-scale appearance/migration and it’s a sight to see.
I discovered this in the summer of 2019 when I was running my Lucky Craft lure through what I thought to be a good-looking spot. Apparently, I was right because I was hooking up on just about every cast but popping off on most of them.
Well, turns out I was simply foul hooking bat rays as they darted off. I learned this after landing one successfully… but not before losing a lure to what had to be a good-sized ray (2:48-3:00 of this video shows this in a poor video if you wanted to link this: Hundreds of Bat Rays).
Hundreds Of Sharks Just Off The Beach
This one is a little more known to the locals in San Diego as well as in a few other places where leopard sharks congregate in large numbers.
Aerial shots are the best illustration of what I’m talking about here, but every year, leopard sharks flood the shoreline of Southern California, and the view can be simply astonishing.
Glowing Waves
The red tide and bioluminescent waves is another topic that has been covered in detail on my website. While I have a love-hate relationship with the glowing waves phenomenon, it’s truly a sight to see.
The only way you’re going to see any of this is if you get out there and put in the time. And the beauty of all these phenomena is that you won’t see them every day. But, if you put some time in and keep on the lookout, you’re bound to get lucky eventually. And hey, you might even catch a fish.
Don’t forget Orcas hunting dolphins ;). Saw these guys at Torrey Pines in January. This video was just the end of it. They were jumping for about a minute before we took out the camera
https://youtu.be/LoyrK1xACag?si=yyXoAfLRzB4hQNcv
Yes! That’s been very cool this year. I don’t think it happens every year in SD but a very cool phenomenon this year for sure!
The Torrey Pines Falcon last year hovering a couple feet away trying to steal my catch and release felt like I should have given it to him but I didn’t want any bad habits
Ahhh I almost included ospreys swooping down for a catch. Yes we have tons of ospreys which are what you’re referring to. We also have peregrine falcons that will prey on other birds here.
Great read Nick, ‘glowing waves’ is the one thing I’ve never seen. Verne
Thanks, Verne! Definitely recommend checking them out one of these days.