Results & Analysis:
2010 3Bs Tournament
The 2010 Beyond The Breakwater 3Bs Tournament was held on June 12, 2010 out of Mission Bay. Twenty-six contestants from all over California fished the waters from Long Beach (yes, you read that correctly) down to Imperial Beach and the Coronados.
Big swells, red tide and strong winds greeted their efforts, but a few teams managed to find fish, almost exclusively calico bass. Like last year, there were a lot of shorts, but there were enough "keepers" to allow some decent scores. This article has the final results, and discusses the tackle and techniques used by the top finishers.
| Summary |  |
Winning Tactics | |
Equipment Notes | |
Looking Forward |
Our Sponsors
 |
 |
 |
 Cam Sigler |
 Galvan Fly Reels |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 San Diego Fly Shop |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Conditions: They could have been worse...At least it didn't rain or snow
As always, the best way to get bad weather is to schedule an event outdoors. Weather and water conditions were passable in the days preceding the tournament: a bit bumpy (3-4' long period swells), with a moderate breeze in the afternoon and 64 degree water temps. However, there was a strong red tide along the coast early in the week, and it looked like fishing in the kelp could be slow.
We went fishing out of San Diego Bay on Wednesday preceding the tournament, and encountered a fairly strong red tide close to shore. But the water cleared up as we travelled south, and a mile or so past the Whistler Buoy we encountered big schools of biting barracuda and yellowtail. Things were looking good for the 3Bs!
However, a strong west wind came up Thursday night, and by Friday morning it was blowing 15 - 20+ knots, and water conditions had changed for the worse. We felt certain there would be issues, and sure enough, at 7:00am we received our first piece of evidence - a phone call from Floyd Sparks, who was aboard his boat, Tuna Kahuna.
Floyd was prefishing the tournament with his partner, Gregg Holland, and they were having a tough slog going south out of Mission Bay. Floyd was only able to maintain 10 mph in his 26' Striper with a 225 HP outboard. They actually quit early, without catching a single fish.
However, by Friday evening, things started to die down, and by 3:30am Saturday morning, it was almost dead calm. It was even drizzling at my home in North County. However, the breeze started to pick up again during the morning, with occasional strong gusts, and the water remained quite lumpy during the day. Nothing too huge, but "confused". The air temps were also a bit chilly for June.
Given the severity of the brief weather front, it was likely that the fishing would be off, but just how far off the fishing would be remained to be seen.
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get....
Given the conditions, what would you do?
- Focus on the local barracuda and yellowtail, and forget the kelp fishing
- Grind it out close to Mission Bay, searching for clean water in the kelp
- Find areas similar to the areas you know best from your home waters, and rely on techniques that you know work
- Go long, someplace far away, and make up for lost fishing time by catching more fish.
The top three teams chose to do some combination of the first three options. Team PC Flyfishing started in the kelp around Point Loma, and got a scorable fish right off the bat, but then things slowed and they started looking around. Tuna Kahuna and Team Normandy had similar experiences.
Team PC Flyfishing ultimately wound up fishing Zuniga Jetty, which is the same type of structure as the Long Beach Federal Breakwater (AKA "The Wall"). The Wall is Capt. Webb's home turf, and using the same techniques that they use on the Wall, Webb and teammate Scott Jones managed to pick up 10 scorable fish.
Their top flies included the usual olive/white Clouser Minnow and the Slider, fished on sinking lines right along the face of the jetty.
Team Tuna Kahuna chose to run down to the Imperial Beach kelp, but found similar problems down there, so they decided to come back up to Point Loma and keep looking around. They eventually found some clear water near Green Tanks, and started collecting a lot of small fish, with a few scorable fish mixed in. They ended their day there, after picking up 5 scorable fish.
Their top flies included black/white and blue/white "micro Tuna Kahunas", 2.5 - 3" versions of Floyd's Tuna Kahuna style fly. Fished on fast sinking lines, the fish were hitting the flies on the sink, in patches of clear water between the kelp fronds.
Team Normandy also went south, but stopped at the Whistler Buoy, where they found that the barracuda and yellowtail had completely disappeared. They were still metering a few fish in the area, so they decided to try a few blind casts anyway, out in open water.
They used a drift sock to slow their drift way down, and amazingly, they started catching fish. They even had a double-header going on bass at one point, and they caught the only scorable barracuda from this one spot.
They were using fast-sinking lines, with olive/white Clouser Minnows and Mixed Media flies.
Two teams decided to go long. Last year's Powerboat Division winner, Team Hang 10, ran to the Coronados and fished the entire day there, for just two bass. Along similar lines, Team Norris/Piper/Nakano launched out of Huntington Harbor (that's in Orange County, about 80 miles north of Dana Landing), in order to try to catch some of the barracuda that had been haunting the Huntington Flats.
But that bite had shut off, so they wound up fishing the Wall, where they picked up a couple of fish. Once back at the ramp, team member Steve Piper jumped into his car, and ran the media cards and measuring board back to Mission Bay in order to meet the check-in time deadline. Teammates Jon Nakano and Randy Norris followed with the boat a bit later.
Page 2 of 4 pages for this article : < 1 2 3 4 >
