FORGET FINESSE : WHEN YOU'RE FLY-ANGLING IN THE SURF, AN UGLY CAST IS PREFERRED.

Byline: BRETT PAULY

When practicing the art of fly-fishing in the surf, you can struggle to meet your goal of hooking a hefty halibut until your legs are blue from the chilly brine - or until you finally realize it's really a battle of what not to do.

Don't overcast.

Don't be shy setting the hook.

And don't take your eyes off the breakers; it's that one rogue wave you don't see that will knock you down and drag you out.

``First thing is to keep one eye on the wave and one eye on the line,'' said Frank Selby, who teaches monthly wintertime surf-casting classes out of His & Her Fly Fishing Shop, the tackle store he and his wife, Bev, own and operate in Costa Mesa.

This time of year, when many other forms of angling are hampered by weather and cooler water temperatures, he brings his attentive disciples down the ocean's edge to help them discover the finer points of casting shrimp and sand crab patterns on bonefish leaders and 8-weight rods.

The quarry can be pure fighting glory - halibut (last year Selby released a 20-pound flattie that he landed on 12-pound leader after it broke his rod), barred surfperch, needlefish, spotfin croaker, yellowfin croaker, mackerel, corbina - or something, shall we say, a little less highly prized - lobster, rock crab, mussels, kelp, the bottom.

But to be in the game at all, fly-anglers have to come back to the basics; you certainly can't win for trying too hard.

Finesse. Forget it.

``This is the only fly-fishing where the harder you hit the water, the better chance you've got,'' Selby said. Nothing stealth about it. Try getting away with that on a blue-ribbon trout stream. Sounds preposterous, but the point is that a cast halted with the arm high in the air helps drive a heavy line into the oncoming wave.

And those postcard-perfect double hauls that can be kept in control to 50 feet or more. You'd have better luck casting in the dunes. They won't do you a bit of good since most fish are holding no more than 20 feet out.

``The biggest thing I hear out of everybody: `There can't be fish this close in,' '' said Selby, who has actually stepped on halibut he guessed weighed 30 pounds as recently as late week. ``And as soon as one person catches one, they all start listening. They all start trying.''

The idea is to target surf species that take shelter in a trough - the Barred Perch and Corbina Highway, by Selby's reckoning - after their mad raids on the sand crab beds, and to take aim at the halibut that dine on their offspring, especially that of the perch, which bear young from February to July.

Yep, cast short and fish shallow. Selby prefers to work with about 20 feet of a 25-foot shooting-head line, and it's best to have the line actually slam into the cresting wave first so that the leader and fly fall on the backside of the breaker. Add some taut to the line by lifting the rod and the wave will drive the line down and make the fly appear to a perch like a lip-smacking crab that has been washed up in the back tow of the previous wave and is trying frantically to swim back to the safety of the sand.

Of course, that's only the best way. You'll have plenty of luck just by getting the line out anyway you can. That's why surf-fishing is such an excellent way for beginners to properly learn how to cast a fly.

In fact, fly-angling perfectionists may want to try elsewhere, because, as Selby points out, ``The only thing that is 100 percent for sure in surf-fishing is that the fish are going to do exactly the opposite of what you think they are going to do. If you keep at it, you will start hooking fish. If you have no coordination at all, you will catch a fish.''

During one of Selby's recent field classes, Don Collins of Tustin hooked into his first saltwater fish, a barred surfperch, on a fly using a sand crab pattern tied by his mentor.

``It felt great,'' Collins said, straining to make himself heard over the breakers at Newport Pier. ``It was a tap, tap, tap, and set the hook and he was on. I couldn't believe it.''

The outing was Tom Baker's first saltwater fly-fishing experience and his second time angling, period. He took in the basics in stride. ``I learned to be patient, to look at the water and see if you can see the fish and what your fly is doing, and to be just aware the whole time,'' he said.

Standing confidently in the foam donning neoprene waders, his golden mane blowing back from under a cap, Selby looked like Custer at the beach, a general barking marching orders to his rapt troops. A licensed instructor who learned to fly-fish in the surf in 1956 using, of all things, brown woolly worms weighted to the hilt, Selby is the nephew of the late syndicated outdoors writer Marion Selby.

Slow that retrieve way down, he advised one newcomer who was testing the tide at Big Corona Beach. Indeed, this isn't deep-water fly-fishing, in which you strip in line faster than a conventional reel.

And since it's often tough to tell the difference between a bite and the tow of the current or tug of the sand, step back, yank down on the line and pull up on the rod anyhow. ``You're trying to rip the jaws off 'em,'' Selby explained. ``If you even think you're getting a hit, set the hook. Lot of stuff out there can bite.''

And if you come up empty or haul in a bunch of mussels, well you're no worse off. It's that strike you don't respond to that's really going to bum you out.

Selby took my rod to show me how it's done and, after no more than three casts, was into a halibut that swallowed a gray shrimp fly.

``Hook up, hook up,'' he shouted in a high, crackly voice for all around to witness.

Unfortunately, few fish were caught this day - seven between 10 anglers, seven of whom were the class. But you can't get better results without first correcting the shortcomings.

TACKLE BOX

When fly-fishing in the surf, the following gear is recommended:

Rod: 6- to 10-weight.

Reel: A quality saltwater or freshwater reel capable of holding 75 to 150 yards of 20- to 25-pound backing. (Make sure either is thoroughly cleaned after each trip.) Does not require a sophisticated drag system, but knowing how to palm a reel to increase the drag when a bull corbina takes off can prove the difference between landing and losing it.

Fly line: 25 feet of floating, shooting-head (a sinking variety in winter; floating in summer) or slow- to medium-sinking line, whichever you're most comfortable casting. Once you know how properly to lift a line out of the water to cast, graduate to the heavier sinking line that gets the fly down to the fish faster.

Leader: 9 to 12 feet of 8- to 13-pound tapered, saltwater sinking leader, preferably a bonefish leader. Some anglers opt for freshwater leaders from 3X to 1X. No tippet is required, unless a lot of leader is broken off; then use 12-pound freshwater or saltwater tippet.

Flies: Gray shrimp, pink ghost shrimp, sand crab (Selby's version, with a brown, plastic bag for the shell, is called Frank's crab), Crazy Charlie (a bonefish fly) or similar attractor pattern, Clauser minnow or any yellow, green or blue saltwater streamer patterns. A popular tandem is a gray shrimp with a sand crab tied a foot behind it with 12-pound tippet.

Tips:

- Surf fly-anglers say the best time to fish is in the early morning on overcast days during medium incoming or outgoing tides.

- Don't be afraid to try freshwater flies.

``The only fly that doesn't work in saltwater?'' pondered instructor Frank Selby, who learned on brown woolly worms. ``I haven't found one yet, except dries. But any nymph I have used caught fish.''

- Cast in areas where you see sand crab beds - which appear like ripples in the sand under receding waves - and where two currents meet in the tide. Both are great feeding areas for surf fishes.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--color) Fly-fishing instructor Frank Selby hoists a halibut he landed during one of his recent beginning surf-casting courses in Newport Beach.

(2) A tandem setup with a gray shrimp fly in front of a sand crab can prove deadly on barred surfperch.

Brett Pauly / Daily News

Box: TACKLE BOX (see text)