Stripers on the Sand Part 2 of 3 Stalking Stripers

With gear organized and enough practice casting so you can cast lures out to the outer break, you only need to find the action. This is simple, or impossible! Many fishermen simply sit in lots along the Great Highway and wait: others drive back and forth between the Cliff House and Pacifica or Thornton Beaches.

If you own a CB you are ahead of the game. Regulars use CB radios and a set of code names and signals to let each other know where the action peaks. With time, you pick up codes and can separate reliable reporters from the optimistic types who imagine action. If you see a lot of cars with rods in their roof-top racks headed at high speed in one direction you might follow along. From San Francisco, the first beach outlook is the Cliff House at the end of Geary Boulevard. Glass the beach to the south towards the zoo. If you don't see action, drive south to the zoo parking lot and check the beach to the south. From here you can drive past Lake Merced and take the turnoff above Thornton Beach State Park.

The bluffs near the old stables offer a good view of the beach all the way to Mussel Rock. Thornton Beach does charge seasonal or daily fees, but it certainly reduces the slog down the soft sandy bluffs to the water.

The next outlook is a walk in to near the base of Mussel Rock at the end of a winding road network from Highway 1 -- check on your map. From this point you can see north to Thornton Beach or even the San Francisco Zoo and south past Pacifica Pier with Pillar Point in the background.

Next South is "Super-X" named after its market and "the apartments" fishing areas. Next south a well- marked road leads to Pacific Pier, a good spot to fish live or "recently dead" anchovy for stripers or salmon on days when fish don't run on the beach. South of here there are stripers at times all the way to Santa Cruz.

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