Chasing the Elusive Corbina in the Surf, with Al Quattrocchi

Tom Rosenbauer (00:01): Well, my guest today is the great Al Quatroqui from Southern California. And if you are, if you're into saltwater fishing at all on the, on the West coast, you know, Al's name, you've read his articles, you've seen his book or books. you know, Al is, Al is the man. If you read California fly fisher, Al's always got lots of great stuff in there. So Al, welcome to the podcast. I've been trying to get you on here for a while and we finally caught up in New Jersey this year.

Al Quattrocchi (00:32): Yeah, it was fun to see you, Tom. hadn't seen you in a while. I hadn't been out back in Jersey for a while. I love the Edison show and it's great to just hook up with all your old friends there.

Tom Rosenbauer (00:37): Yeah. Well, there's a, there's something that I've been wanting to do a podcast on and you're the man and that's Corbina. I have, I've heard a lot about them. I have never even seen one. I have certainly never caught one, but, but looking at the videos I've seen and also your book, it's, it looks like an amazing fish and it looks like something that I personally would enjoy. I don't think anyone who enjoy sight fishing and fishing in the surf would love so let's let's talk about corbina.

Al Quattrocchi (01:19): I think Corbina are very misunderstood fish. They're really a very, very interesting species. They're in the croaker family. And most croakers croak, right? They beat, they croak when you pull out of water. Corbina don't do that. They've evolved to be stealth. So even though they're in the croaker family, you'll never hear a croak out of a Corbina. They're basically a very shallow water species.

Tom Rosenbauer (01:26): Mm Okay. Yeah. huh. Yep. You Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (01:48): and they blend into the environment, but they're very smooth, slow, and stealthy. And they can be in inches of water. people don't, a lot of times people don't even see them. They're amazing, but they're very, very skittish when they're in shallow water, especially because of people or surfers or ospreys or, know, back in the day, grizzly bears used to eat them, I'm sure.

Tom Rosenbauer (02:13): wow.

Al Quattrocchi (02:15): Yeah, but they're really cool. And they're almost like a triangular type shape to them. have an air bladder, but their air bladder allows them to kind of hug the bottom and slide. So they're incredible on how they understand how each wave, the amount of energy in each wave will take them where they need to go. And they can be in super shallow water and turn on a dime and then just slide back into the ocean.

Tom Rosenbauer (02:20): huh, yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Al Quattrocchi (02:47): It's amazing. I've never seen one get beached. But they're always, this time of the year, it's going to get started. You know, when we start getting out certain temperatures where Corbina like it, you know, they like it kind of between, you know, the 65 to 68 temperature range. That's when we see a lot of sand crabs start up. There hasn't been a lot of studies on these fish. We don't know where they go in the winter.

Tom Rosenbauer (03:05): Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (03:14): I mean, some go into back bays and winter there. Some of them may go south to Mexico or deeper water. But usually in the late spring, in the summer, we start seeing lots of corvina enter the beaches. And they might be in a spawn situation because sometimes we do see them doubled up. do see, sometimes we see schools, but they're pretty much solitary. You see ones and maybe twos and...

Tom Rosenbauer (03:42): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Al Quattrocchi (03:42): And they're on sand crabs. I mean, they love sand crabs. if you could figure out where the sand crabs live, and I know where those crab beds are, and wait for the tide to be right, you have a really good chance to catch a one. And they're not easy to catch.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:00): Now, now, sand crabs are like those those I think they're called mole crabs that we see on sandy beaches here. Is that the same? that the same thing? OK.

Al Quattrocchi (04:07): It's the same thing, exactly. In fact, I'm doing an article right now in tail on the West Coast sand crab and the East Coast sand crab. I know you guys are using them for stripers now in the summer, correct?

Tom Rosenbauer (04:22): Well, I haven't, but looking at your book and seeing the patterns in your book, by the way, Corbina Diaries, which is a great book, see it looking in your book, you know, we've got those crabs on our beaches and I haven't personally haven't heard of anybody using a mole crab imitations, but they must be just just in my circle.

Al Quattrocchi (04:45): There's a gentleman, there's a guy named Tim, I think Tim Regan. I met him at the Edison show and he has a crab called the Holy Moly, just like mine. He called it the same name. And he's been targeting stripers in the surf. It's a little bit different than the way we target Corbina, but he said he's been side fishing stripers with him and doing really well. So, interesting.

Tom Rosenbauer (04:48): Uh-huh. Uh-huh. okay. Cool. Before we get into the details of trying to catch a Corbina on a fly, what's the range? It's summertime, right? So what months do you target them?

Al Quattrocchi (05:24): I would say a good bet would be like July, June, July, August. That's usually really prime time. July being probably the best bet. It's been moving back since I started fishing for them over 25 years. It used to be like end of May, June was, it would really start up pretty good. And now it's kind of like in July, starts, it's, it's, everything's been getting pushed back a little bit, but all those summer months when we get warm water.

Tom Rosenbauer (05:28): Okay. huh, yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (05:51): temperatures like between, like I said, in the high sixties, that turns them on and you start seeing them just really coming in hard on the beaches. And that's when we like to target them. You know, back when we first started fishing for corbean, it was a bycatch for me when I first caught my first corbean. I was with Nick Curcion and he was my mentor in the surf. taught me how to use shooting heads and stuff. So we fished a lot and I caught one. He got real excited when I caught one and that was probably in the late eighties. And we were using leadcore, know, we were using sinking lines and dredging, you know, for perch and all sorts of stuff, halibut. And I happened to catch one, but we never really sight cast for them effectively until I'd say about the turn of the century, around 2000s it started where we figured out that we can get flies in front of these fish and get out of the water. Like before that we were, you know, we were waiting with waiters and stuff. But just around that time period,

Tom Rosenbauer (06:27): huh. Yeah. Sure, yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (06:50): we realized that if we got back on the sand and let those fish come in really tight and throw sand crab patterns at them that were not, the original sand crab patterns we tied were made out of epoxy and they had lead eyes and they would be like throwing a pebble in a swimming pool. It would scare things away because it would have a big drop. When we started to use the EP fibers and my buddy Paul Cronin started playing around with the Merkin pattern, which was an original Del Brown pattern.

Tom Rosenbauer (06:53): Yep. huh. Right. Yep.

Al Quattrocchi (07:20): for permit, a little bit bushier. And with a 5-32nd dazzle eye, you can drop that fly right close to a fish and it wouldn't spook it. They would be okay with it. Especially if they tailed up, you could put it right on them. And what was nice about that fly was when you stripped it, it almost looked like a burrowing mole crab. If I had it on video and you saw it, go across, you wouldn't see the fly. You'd see just a little ball moving underneath the sand. And that imitates the mullet crab perfectly. And those fish would just kind of come up on it. They have a little barbel and they have really good eyesight. So they kind of come up and they would just feel it and suck it in. And we were catching them with the crabs in there, almost in their crushers. We'd have to go in and pull them out. They really thought that was a mole crab and that changed the game because then you would catch maybe one or two before this whole thing happened and we would keep every fly we caught a corbina on because nobody knew what fly was going to be the fly. So I had like all these wounded warriors of all these different like flies and then finally when that surfin' murkin came out it really changed the game and you my buddies were getting oh I caught 25, I caught 30, I caught 50.

Tom Rosenbauer (08:17): huh, yeah. huh. Yep.

Al Quattrocchi (08:42): we would catch and fish and that's when we started writing about it and saying, okay, we cracked the code now we can catch these fish effectively with these surfing merkins. And I came up with the Holy Moly, which is a very, it's just an adaptation of that surfing merkin. His was tied horizontally by crisscrossing the EP fibers like a merkin. Mine was tied almost like a Joe Brooks blonde on top of the shank. Gave it a little bit of a rounder feeling, a little bit higher profile when it swam.

Tom Rosenbauer (09:06): Right. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (09:12): But they both work great. And the colors that we use were gray and pink. And you're like, pink, why pink? Well, for some reason, and I don't know if Corbina colorblind, but pink doesn't affect them. Like we can see it really good in the surf line. And that's why we went with pink because gray sometimes you lose the fly, but with pink, can see it. We can see them track it. We can see them eat it. So, and it didn't scare them. We used other colors like, you know, chartreuse and they would run they would just spook from chartreuse it wasn't didn't look good to them but pink and gray seem to see the best colors that we started using and they working great yeah

Tom Rosenbauer (09:51): Interesting. now what's the range of Corbina on the beaches on the West Coast?

Al Quattrocchi (09:58): I think we get them as far up as like Santa Barbara, up north by Santa Barbara. And then I'd say their range goes all the way down to Mexico.

Tom Rosenbauer (10:02): Okay. All the way down along along Baja there. Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (10:10): Like the Baja, the Baja coast down to Mexico. Yeah. Like Mag Bay has them and you

Tom Rosenbauer (10:18): So it's mainly a southern West Coast thing. Okay. Okay, okay.

Al Quattrocchi (10:21): Yes, yes, you're not going to get them in San Francisco. And you're not going to get them really above Santa Barbara area. I think the water gets real cold.

Tom Rosenbauer (10:28): And in nobody knows nobody knows where they go during the winter, early spring and fall. Nope, you don't.

Al Quattrocchi (10:36): I spoke to biologists, fish biologists, they said it's not, it was never a commercial fish. So they never tagged it. They never tried to make, figure out, you know. where it went and what it did.

Tom Rosenbauer (10:49): Yeah, you probably you probably don't eat them, but are they a good fish to eat? I'm sure you don't kill them.

Al Quattrocchi (10:54): Believe it not, I don't eat them, but I did eat one last year for the first time. A friend of mine caught one and he said, you have to try it, Corbinia. You've never eaten one, you have to try it. So he actually fileted for me and he goes, I want you to try it two ways. I want you to cook it, cook one filet, and I want you to sashimi one filet and tell me what you think. And it was fantastic.

Tom Rosenbauer (11:05): Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Oh, that's a bad sign. Oh, that's a bad sign. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh.

Al Quattrocchi (11:18): It was fantastic. Because all they do is eat crabs. mean, it was really, really, really good. Very sweet meat, very white meat. And the person who gave it to me was a fish biologist, by the way. So, okay.

Tom Rosenbauer (11:26): Uh-huh. Now, now tell me, you say that a lot of this is relatively urban fishing, right? You don't have to go, you don't have to go down to Baja. you can catch them right in city limits and in, in fairly busy places.

Al Quattrocchi (11:45): Yes, yes, very urban. As long as the beaches are the type of beaches you want to look for. I like to look for flat beaches. I don't want steep beaches. I don't want rocky beaches. But a lot of the beaches where I live in Southern California are really beautiful. They're almost like in the summertime, like wintertime we get big swells. They come into California out of Hawaii and they beat the hell out of the beach, which is great because we get structure. And then in the spring,

Tom Rosenbauer (11:55): Okay. Yep. huh.

Al Quattrocchi (12:14): you the structure is really good, but it'll start to fill in. And then towards the summer, there still might be some structure, but it's pretty much flat. And I look for those beaches because it gives me the opportunity to see the fish a long distance, because the waves will break and then roll slowly in over these flat beaches and over the sand crab. And then we can kind of track where those fish are. If you were going to try to target a corvina and you wanted your best opportunities, I would say,

Tom Rosenbauer (12:32): Right, yep.

Al Quattrocchi (12:43): You got to really look at the tides and we have minus low tides in the summer. They usually come in the mornings and a minus low tide is when there's like no water on the beach. Okay. And what I like is combining the minus low tide with an early low tide because it gives us low light, which is great because in a highlight situation, you know, 10 o'clock in the morning to two o'clock in the afternoon, you'll be able to see everything.

Tom Rosenbauer (12:50): Mm-hmm. Okay. Right.

Al Quattrocchi (13:12): If you can see them, they can see you.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:14): Uh-huh. And since these fish are so shallow, you probably don't have to actually see them in the water. see them tailing and kind of waking.

Al Quattrocchi (13:21): You could look at, you could see, you could see nervous water. can, you can, you can vicinity cast where you think they're going to be because they got to get from point A to point B. And the only way they can do it is through this one seam that's coming down the beach. You may not see the fish, but you'll see the seam. I've caught them that way. So basically you go down at a low tide. I would tell people if they were visiting California, just go down a low tide, minus low tide and walk the beach and look and look at where the sand crab beds are. You'll see little areas that look like little pebbles.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:32): huh. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (13:51): and there'll be patches of them, okay? Those are sand crab beds and they'll move up and down the beach depending on the tide. So the Corbinan know that those beds are there at this time of the year. And what they'll do is they'll be pushed off those beds for six to eight hours on the tide. And they're gonna now come back in on an incoming tide off the minus low is exposed everything. So you see structure, you see the beds, there's no water, but the tide's gonna turn and it's gonna come out away.

Tom Rosenbauer (13:57): Hmm. Right.

Al Quattrocchi (14:21): Right? So what I talk about is this thing called a magic window. It usually happens after the turn of the tide when you, probably have about a foot, maybe a half a foot to about a foot and a half of water. So for instance, let's say the minus low tide is six in the morning. Okay. That's what it says. Six and it's going to turn at six in the morning at like seven 30, we might have a half, maybe a foot of water on, the flat. You want to be there for that foot.

Tom Rosenbauer (14:21): Right, right. Yep. Okay. Yep.

Al Quattrocchi (14:50): because there's enough water for the corbinas to get to the crab beds and actually tail up on them. Okay? And so you want that scenario. And you want to get your flies on those beds, cast, before those waves get up on it, come and roll up on them. then as soon as that wave starts passing that bed, you start to slowly strip your fly, even if you don't see the fish, because they're gonna be there. And then what happens is once that water thins out,

Tom Rosenbauer (14:54): Right? Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (15:20): you'll see them scurry away off that bed and go back. They were there and a lot of times you can't even see them. sometimes, I know where they are because of the years I put in. Sometimes I don't even know, I know exactly where they're gonna be because that's the only way they can get from point A to point B. And you also have to know how they're gonna exit. So once that water comes up, how they're gonna leave. When they leave, you never cast to them. You'll see their backs out of the water. Just moving along, let them go, let them go. And just wait, because sometimes if they hit it once, they're gonna hit it.

Tom Rosenbauer (15:23): huh. Yeah, yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (15:49): two or three times. So wait for the next good push. Enough water to get those fish to crawl, to slide back up and get your flies in there and you have a good chance to catch them.

Tom Rosenbauer (16:01): Can you fish them all the way through to high tide to peak high?

Al Quattrocchi (16:04): You can, so things are gonna change. once that scenario that I'm giving you right now is your best chance because they're hungry, they're coming on hot, we have low light, we have sand crab beds, we can see everything laid out for us is a good opportunity there. Once the tide gets up and starts getting a little higher, then they go into a different mode. They go into more of a parallel approach where they're kind of cruising along the edges of a trough. All right, and in that situation, that's...

Tom Rosenbauer (16:11): Right, Mm-hmm, yeah. Okay. Yep.

Al Quattrocchi (16:34): really true sight fishing, because that way you might see them, you got to get way out in front of them and maybe throw a nice 45 degree cast a little bit further than they're at. And once, once they get close, have that crab come right in front of them, put it right in the kitchen. And if they see it, I've seen a lot of times where they're coming and I made my cast and I wait. And once they get close enough, I start moving that crab and that crab's going from a deeper trough onto a flat, onto a shallower area.

Tom Rosenbauer (16:44): Right.

Al Quattrocchi (17:03): they'll actually track it right on the shallow area and pin it and you can stick them. You know, it's kind of cool. But those are...

Tom Rosenbauer (17:09): huh. So it's more like more like snook fishing on the beach. Where are they? Yeah. Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (17:13): Or bone fishing, you know, but those opportunities are not a lot because you have to have perfect amount of water, clarity, the waves have to be down. I mean, we get situations like that maybe a handful of times during the course of the summer, you know? Yeah. But they're there. Sometimes you'll see them and you won't see them because it's foamy. You you want that perfect day where you can really see them.

Tom Rosenbauer (17:24): Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.

Al Quattrocchi (17:42): Those are hard to find, but they're there. just gotta fish, know, more time you fish, the more times you have opportunities you get to see that.

Tom Rosenbauer (17:49): Yep. And then outgoing is, is not a good time. The fish just aren't interested in eating.

Al Quattrocchi (17:55): No, no, you could fish the outgoing tide. It's just that they've already ate. They came in, they ate. You might get one to grab, you know, but I tend to really like that early morning, that off the minus tide situation for people that want to have the best chance to catch one because, you know, it's a good opportunity.

Tom Rosenbauer (18:01): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Now, they're known to be extremely difficult fish. I've heard them described as being as tough as permit. Is it harder? it a is it a matter of finding them or is it is is it a matter of them being spooky and selective or both?

Al Quattrocchi (18:27): I think they're harder to impermeate. It's a combination of many things. One, we're in urban areas, so you got to really watch your back casts. Because it's like a video game. Two, they are very, very skittish. And in shallow water, they're really skittish. You have to stay back. Sometimes you got to get down on your knees to make a good cast. You don't have to cast far. If you can cast 30, 40, 50 feet and make a good cast,

Tom Rosenbauer (18:43): Yeah. Yeah. Wow, yep

Al Quattrocchi (19:06): you're in the game. The other thing is they eat when they want to eat. They're not honest.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:07): Okay. Like permit. huh.

Al Quattrocchi (19:17): Yeah, they're not honest. So it's a game of making lots of good presentations and then you'll get rewarded, you know, eventually. And a lot of times because they're so shallow and because they're on crab beds and because a lot of people throw flies at them, you're going to foul a lot of Corbina because you're going to be stripping your fly over a bed and they're in that bed moving around. They may not see your fly and bang, you get them in a fin or bing, you get them at the belly or you get them on the side of it.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:23): Uh-huh. Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (19:46): So a lot of times you see people holding a corbina on the internet, they're not fair caught. We at the corbina Patrol back in the day, one of the rules we had was that we would never post or even talk about catching a corbina unless the corbina ate the fly. Because that to me is, that's the reward, right? So that's one thing, that's another thing as well. yeah, I mean.

Tom Rosenbauer (19:50): Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. What... Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (20:15): They're hard to catch. They're not easy. It's a game of lot of casts, almost like steelhead fishing in a way, you know, or carp, or carp. And then there's days, Tom, when you go down and I, when I fish, you know, I work, so when I fish, I'll usually do like an hour to a two hour window where I go down, go down. know the scenario, I have the best opportunities and I fish those hour to two hours and then I'm.

Tom Rosenbauer (20:20): Yeah, or carp for that matter, you can throw to a lot of carp and not hook one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (20:41): And I would say, you know, there's maybe two or three times in my life where I've caught five in that short period. And that's because everything lined up. And it was like, you almost think, this is easy, but that doesn't happen often. You know, if you, if you, if you get one in a session, it's a win. And sometimes even if you bump one or you get, you get one stuck and then all of a sudden you get, they run and they pop. That's a win for me. It's like, my God, I got one to eat the, you know, eat the fly.

Tom Rosenbauer (20:46): Wow. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Al Quattrocchi (21:09): So it's a very, very challenging fish, but it forces you to be a better fly fisherman in anything else you do. Okay. Yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (21:15): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, what's the retrieve like? Do you vary it or, is there a good, is there a better retrieve to start with anyways?

Al Quattrocchi (21:22): Good question. Good question. So there's different retrieves, different scenarios. When they're on little rice crispy flies, the tiny little sand crab ones, sometimes we'll cast parallel to the beach and let the wave, on wet sand, let the wave roll in and roll that crab back. And sometimes they'll pick it up. Okay, so that's really no retrieve. You can get them that way. But for the most part, I tell people whether it's a slow strip or little bumps,

Tom Rosenbauer (21:36): Yeah. Wow. huh. huh. Yeah. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (21:57): Just keep the cadence. Don't stop it. Because if you stop it, sometimes they'll eat it and spit it. And you'll never feel them. And I learned this because one day I was up on a jetty and I spotted a fish for a buddy of mine. And we didn't have great visibility, but I could see the fish because I had a higher vantage point. And I was telling him, OK, 10 feet to the left, cast. And he cast. And I saw everything. And I was watching him strip. And the fish came up and ate the fly.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:05): Hmm

Al Quattrocchi (22:25): And I was waiting for my friend to strip and I said, what do you strip? Hit it, hit it. And he ended up hooking it, but there was such a delay. So what I'd like to do is I like, just make sure that I'm always moving the fly so that if they do eat it, I'm in contact with them. I feel them right away and I can set the hook. it could be, no, no, no, you don't want to move it too fast. You want it to represent a sand crab. know, they're going to just kind of cruise along and.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:33): Mmm. but you don't want to move it too fast, right? You want to kind of just drag it along. Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (22:53): bury themselves. As soon as that water comes up, they all try to bury themselves, get away from this corvina. So you want to just go a slow strip or keep it a little bit on top of the sand like it's gonna go in underneath the sand to escape. Just kind of slow, slow move it across and stick them. Yeah. And that's why we like to use lines that are sinking in a very low grain weight. So you can fish corvina with a four weight, a five weight, a six weight, a seven weight. I tend to fish with a six or a seven.

Tom Rosenbauer (22:57): huh. Right. Okay. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (23:22): And I like, I make my own head basically. I'll do like a 27 foot piece of T8 and I'll attach it to, I really like this running line, Hazumi running line. And if I'm using T8, I'll use Hazumi 50 pound. So that's a little something I can grab onto. I'll just do an Albright at the end and put some Plyobond on it. And what's nice, little shooting head.

Tom Rosenbauer (23:49): So it's like a little shooting head, like a little mini shooting head.

Al Quattrocchi (23:52): Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I want it to track. When my fly is out there, I'll use a short leader, maybe a five or six foot leader. They're not going to be leader shy because they're going to be approaching the fly from behind and in turbulent water. So you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, so I want to make the cast. I could do a little roll cast, get it where I need it to be. I put my rod tip right on the sand. I want a straight line.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:06): huh. Mm-hmm.

Al Quattrocchi (24:20): to my fly so I'm in perfect contact with it. And then I do my strips. if I feel the bump, I do a little half turn to stick them. Some friends of mine will run backwards. They'll literally run backwards to make sure they're tight and then fight the fish. When I tell people, when you see that leading wave coming in, that little white water of leading wave coming towards the sand crab bed, cast your fly into that white water.

Tom Rosenbauer (24:23): Right? Uh-huh, yep. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (24:49): because it masks the drop down of the fly. They won't hear it. Okay, that's like a really good tip. You wanna throw it right into that white water, let it settle, and then start to strip through the bed, because they'll be right behind, they're following that white water, looking at stuff moving up and down. If you hit your fly into that white water, it's in front of them, and then it starts moving, and they'll delete it.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:08): Right. So the sinking line, the sinking line probably lands with a pretty good splash, but you say that the fish are coming at you so that you're not throwing the line close to the fish.

Al Quattrocchi (25:15): Does that make sense? That's true and you want the fly the track straight. don't want it, because if I use a floating line, yeah, my window of opportunity is about three inches because it's going to get pushed around. The water is going to push that floating line around. Same thing with an intermediate line. were times if I had to tell you use a sinking line or use an intermediate line, I'd say 90, 85, 90 % of the time I'm using a sinking line only because I want that fly to track straight and I want it to be straight on the bottom coming at

Tom Rosenbauer (25:33): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (25:56): Okay, no slack, no slack.

Tom Rosenbauer (25:56): Yep. Yeah. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (25:59): There are some times when it's really calm, the fish are in shallow and you want to be a little bit more stealthy, you want to get closer to them, you might use that clear and immediate line. And I've done that and it works great.

Tom Rosenbauer (26:10): Yep. Okay. Yep. Yeah. A lot of people use sinking lines on the flats for stripers too. I don't but I probably should more often.

Al Quattrocchi (26:22): In Hawaii, some of the hardest bonefish to catch, big, big, big bonefish. All the top guys that I know fish that clear and immediate line because the fish are not spooked by the line. They'll actually go over the line. Guides hate it because they can't see where you're casting half the time, but it's very effective.

Tom Rosenbauer (26:27): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So Al, for someone who is not going to make their own mini shooting head, what would be the best commercially available flyline?

Al Quattrocchi (26:55): Good question. would say a couple, there's a lot of different ones, but you want to, if you're gonna fish say a six or a seven weight, you want something that's at like 180 grain to 200 grain. It could be a full sinking line or it could be a shooting head, whatever you want. Or you could use a sink tip as long as you have an intermediate running line that's not gonna get pushed around.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:04): 180 green, full sinking line. Or a sink tip, could you use a sink tip too? Okay. like a depth depth charge would be 180 green

Al Quattrocchi (27:18): Yeah, yeah, but you want it to the lighter, the lighter, the better it just masks the whole thing. So I would say the fly lines that I like are, um, Rio makes the premier phantom. It's a 35 foot head. And when I, if I bought that line, I would, uh, for a seven weight, it's 224 grains. It's going to go three inches per second. So what I would do is if I bought that 35 foot head, I would cut it back to 28 and put a loop at the end of it.

Tom Rosenbauer (27:22): Mm-hmm. Are there any scientific ganglars lines you can mention?

Al Quattrocchi (27:54): There is, there is. There's a sonar, saltwater, intermediate, 215 grain, in clear. That's a clear line. And then the sinking shooting head. The only one I found was for an eight weight, and it was 210 grain. But you can take that line and you can probably cut it back a little bit and get it to be under 200 grains. That line would work fine. Yeah. And then the other ones were just ones that I make. I'll make a T8.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:00): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh-huh. Okay, great.

Al Quattrocchi (28:22): Like I said, a T8 27 foot head.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:26): Do you have, do you have instructions for that on your website or in your book? Just if somebody wants to make one themselves. huh.

Al Quattrocchi (28:33): There might be some in the book. There was a bunch of different things with the lines in the book as well. people could reach out to me. I do it in my classes. I probably should do a video.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:42): You don't remember. You don't remember what's in your book, right? I got what I got a copy right here. I don't remember what I don't. I don't remember what's in my books. Don't feel bad. Hmm. Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (28:46): I do, I do. have a thing, I no, no, I have a section on leaders and knots and loops, and I do have a section on leader systems, and you know, it's all in there.

Tom Rosenbauer (28:58): Okay, good. Yeah, I noticed that you sometimes use a frilled leader for corbina.

Al Quattrocchi (29:07): Yeah, yeah, sometimes I'll make a leader completely out of one material. I'll use like say 12 pound test and I'll do a bimini and I'll make a really, really large loop and I'll furl it. So it'll go from four strands of 12 to two strands of 12 to one strand of 12. Yes, I make it all one piece. So it's whole leader. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Tom Rosenbauer (29:13): Yeah. you're furling it yourself. cool. Huh, interesting, interesting. So you don't, you're not using commercially available for elite. You're furling it yourself.

Al Quattrocchi (29:35): No, but you can buy those. I've used those as well. They work fine. You just change out your tippets, you know. And I like to use, I like to use Floro on a tippet. I like to use either Tatsu or Mizer. I think they're both a Seaguar product, but they're from Japan and they're smaller diameter, but same strength. And they're really stealthy, really good lines.

Tom Rosenbauer (29:39): huh. Okay. How about, how about Mirage?

Al Quattrocchi (30:10): I'm sure Mirage works fine. The good thing about Corbina is they're not super leader shy. I mean, I have people that fish 16 pound tippet and catch them. But I'm just telling you some of the things that I use.

Tom Rosenbauer (30:18): Yeah. huh. Yeah. I noticed in your book that you always use loop knots for Corbina.

Al Quattrocchi (30:30): Yeah, I like to use loop nuts on mostly all my flies, unless I'm throwing a popper. A popper I want a straight pull, but most of my flies I want the action and I want the fly to actually sink faster, you know, turn and go down. So I'll use a lefty cray non-slip monoloop, works great.

Tom Rosenbauer (30:33): huh. Yep. Okay. Yep. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the one that most people seem to prefer. It works. Okay.

Al Quattrocchi (30:53): And what else, don't have to be very long. If you're fishing in the middle of the day and it's really calm and the fish might be a little spooky, then I would go to maybe a seven and nine foot leader. But most of the time I'm fishing five to seven feet.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:05): Yeah. Okay. Well, you're fishing sinking lines, right? So you don't want you don't want your leader too long. Yeah, huh?

Al Quattrocchi (31:13): Sicking lines. Correct. And a lot of times, I just want my leader in the water, not even my fly line. Because that's how close they come. That's how close they'll come. And I'll be back, you know, 30 or 40 feet. And sometimes I'll actually put my line behind me and then just make a cast. I won't even false cast.

Tom Rosenbauer (31:22): Wow. You're that close. You're that close to the fish. Yeah. just a water load kind of a, a sand load. That's a new one. Yeah, that would be, that would be as stealthy, about as stealthy as you can get.

Al Quattrocchi (31:38): A sand load, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I even heard of Del Brown back in the day. He would take his rods and sand them down and spray them sky blue so that the permit wouldn't see the wave of the rod or reflection

Tom Rosenbauer (32:02): that's why a lot of people have gone away from shiny rods. know, shiny rods have gone to a more matte finish on the rods. So let's say I come out there in July. What are the chances of me going down to a beach, a nice flat beach and seeing Corbina?

Al Quattrocchi (32:28): I think your chances are pretty good, especially if you give me a call and I'll tell you.

Tom Rosenbauer (32:29): Uh huh. No, no. mean, I mean, just, you know, just Joe Angler, Joe Angler goes to Southern California. I appreciate the invite and I may take, take you up on that, but let's say Joe Angler is in Southern California in July and has a fly rod and knows what they're doing. Have caught permit or bonefish or stripers or whatever. Go down to the beach. Um, and they look for the right kind of structure. They look for a flat, you know, a nice long flat.

Al Quattrocchi (32:58): Yes.

Tom Rosenbauer (32:59): What are the chances of them seeing Corbina? Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (33:02): Very good. Very good chance in the summertime to see a corbina. Yeah, especially on that early incoming tide. They're gonna be in the tide. They're gonna be coming up because they're hungry. They're gonna be looking for food. As long as you locate those sand crab beds first.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:06): huh. Uh-huh. So you might want to do some scouting the day before low tide and look for sand crab beds. Uh-huh. Yep. Yep.

Al Quattrocchi (33:19): Yeah, absolutely. I would scout at least one day, just walk around and talk to the surfers too. Because a lot of times surfers will step on them as they're going out into the waves. They'll see a lot of corbina. Yeah, I mean they'll just see them. They'll scare them and stuff all the time. So yeah, I always try to stay in touch with all the people on the beach, whether it's surfers, spin fishermen. You know, I'm friendly with everybody because you need that intel sometimes.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:31): Step on Corbina. Wow. Yeah. You

Al Quattrocchi (33:49): you know, even fly shops will help you. You know, if you go to a fly shop and

Tom Rosenbauer (33:49): do, yeah. Uh huh, yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (33:53): say, hey, you know, I'm going to be coming to California. Is there any good beaches I can get started out on looking for some corbina? You know, they'll point you in the right direction.

Tom Rosenbauer (33:58): Yeah. huh. Okay. Yeah, no, it's, sounds exciting. Now what are the chances of me hooking a Corbina

Al Quattrocchi (34:09): You know, I have a lot of first timers come out with me and get one. I had a kid last year, he was probably 14, and he brought his three friends. And they were hard charging fly fishermen. They go up to the mountains, they camp, and they came out with me. just for me, the win was for them to understand how it works and to see the game. I didn't have high expectations that they were going to catch a fish, really. They could cast and everything, but it's just, it's a tough game.

Tom Rosenbauer (34:12): Yeah. yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (34:39): I got them out there and we timed it perfectly and they started coming in like insanity, like lots of fish. And these kids were screaming and yelling, my God, and casting it. I said, just keep casting. Just don't freak out. Just keep making the cast. Keep the rod low. Make good strips. And one kid hooked up and he landed one. We got a great picture. his dad was there too. And his dad was like, I can't believe this. I said, yeah. I said, you know, as long as they put the time.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:03): cool. wow.

Al Quattrocchi (35:08): And all these kids were like, my God, we're gonna keep doing this. This is the most fun. So they got to see something new and they're excited about it.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:14): Yeah. Yeah. And close to probably close to home or at least close, close to the city. So yeah, that's cool stuff.

Al Quattrocchi (35:18): Yes.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:25): All right, Al, well, I want to, I want to thank you for, taking the time. it's been a long time coming and I've been wanting to do a corbina podcast cause I keep hearing about them. So, I'm glad you agreed to come on the podcast and, just want to remind people of your book, which, which I think is a fantastic book, corbina diaries. it really tells you everything you need to know.

Al Quattrocchi (35:48): Can I say something about that book real quick? It was interesting because I've been fishing for the fish for a long time with a bunch of my buddies. we had started this thing called the corbina Patrol. Nobody was fishing for corbina sidecasting. there was about five or six of us. And we would be on the same beach the same time each week, always in communication, always trying to figure it out. And then so I had like about 20, 25 years under my belt and COVID hit.

Tom Rosenbauer (35:50): You can say all you want. huh. Yep.

Al Quattrocchi (36:18): And I was like, you know, I got time to do stuff that I always wanted to do. I always wanted to write a book. I had never written a book. So I said, you know what, this is, this is the way the universe is talking to me. I need to do it now. You know? So I had like all this photography and I'm a design graphic design person by trade. So I said, you know, let me just dive in. So in three months, I designed the book. I wrote the book. I had all the and

Tom Rosenbauer (36:24): huh.

Al Quattrocchi (36:47): I put it together and self-published it. But one thing I will say is the best year I ever had Corbina fishing, I never picked up a fly rod. I knew I was going to be doing photographs and I said to myself, okay, this year you're just going to photograph Corbina. You will not fish for them. And I went down and I watched. And that was the most profound year of my life.

Tom Rosenbauer (36:48): Wow. Mmm.

Al Quattrocchi (37:16): for targeting Corbina because I learned so much about them, their habits, their movements. And all the guys that used to fish at me, they would see me crouched down trying to take a picture and a fly would come flying over my head because I knew where the fish were. I was like a spotter, you know? But I just wanted to say that that opportunity of COVID allowing me to do the book, it would never have happened. So I was very gracious that I had the time to

Tom Rosenbauer (37:19): Yeah. Yeah. huh. Yeah. And spending a season, observing him has got to be like a lifetime of fishing for him. It's gotta be so educational. Yeah. Yeah.

Al Quattrocchi (37:50): I encourage a lot of people to do that sometimes, even if it's not for the whole season. But you tell yourself, okay, you know what? One week, I'm not gonna fish, I'm just gonna look. And you'll be surprised how much you learn.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:02): I could only get by with maybe a half day, I think. Yeah, yeah. All right, Al. Well, thanks again for coming on the podcast. We've been talking to Al Quattracchi from Southern California, and you can follow Al. You're probably on Instagram, right?

Al Quattrocchi (38:06): You have to be very disciplined. You're welcome. I'm on Instagram, it's just Al Quattrochi. AlQuattrochi.com.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:29): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Al Quattrocchi (38:33): And my book could be, I love to fly fish media. Just Google love, L-O-V-E, the number two, flyfishmedia.com, I think you'll get it. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:45): that's right, because you self published it. So it may be hard to find other than through you or something.

Al Quattrocchi (38:50): Yes, there's fly shops that some fly shops carry it. They'll call me and I'll ship books to them. But most of the time it's through me.

Tom Rosenbauer (38:54): Uh-huh, great, okay. Okay. All right, Al, thanks again. All right, talk to you soon.

Al Quattrocchi (39:00): Thanks Tom, I appreciate it.