opaleyecalico bassMike Dufish's The Breakwall Angler, starring opaleye and calico bass
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Catch Reports 1999

Opaleye Point 2/20

Breakwall Tim and Breakwall Robert were undeterred by last week's dismal The Breakwall Angler success rate. When I cracked my front door open at 04:59 this morning, there they were all giddy and smiling that they were going to be guided for opaleye by the king at the platform at Opaleye Point during low tide.

The swell chart showed a daunting ten feet off Conception, which was verified by my two pals who heard via radio on the way over that San Diego beaches were being pummeled by eight footers. This was not what we needed where we were fishing today. Because the tide was only one foot at six o'clock meant it would be incoming the whole time we would be there. The way the platform is situated — barely out of the water at low tide — any swell during an incoming could make for a short day if not a short life.

None the worse for worrying, we were down the trail and fording across to the staging rock at five-thirty. I started by casting the five-inch blacksmith perch patter Fish Trap straight out as far as I could. Only minutes behind me were my two clients who both started likewise, Tim with a green color Fish Trap and Robert with a plastic of a style which could not be determined due to darkness. We cast hitless until the burgeoning dawn was bright enough to illuminate our bobbers, having many times to go through the unpleasant exercise of jumping back to the staging rock when the occasional wave-set rolled through. Seeing that few of the swells were coming over the platform's top, I just stood there reeling my lure when sure as sardines one jumped up and got me, soaking me from the teats down. I knew I should have put on my rainsuit first thing, but stupid me…

It was apparent our efforts for bass were silly, so we all picked up our opaleye enteromorpha rigs and had at it. It was unique to see the varying artwork when it came to the painting of the bobbers. When I fish with Breakwall Darryl, both of our bobbers are colored the same fluorescent red, making it confusing at times to focus on who's whose. Today we had bright green and one-carat gold, the latter of which was quite visible reflecting the early-morning low light.

It seemed to take about twenty minutes but alas the king prevailed, catching the days first 'eye which came in at a whopping two-and-a-half pounds. I thought oh boy, we're going to fill the sacks with big guys today.

The old king died. Meet new King Timothy. He started ripping up. He caught four opaleye in a row topped by his own two-pounder before I caught my second, which looked dissapointingly to be under a pound.

Robert was a late bloomer. After he rearranged his sinking Cast-A-Bubble to be right-side up, he started cranking them in. I think he ended up catching three boom, boom, boom. Far out, his largest too was two pounds.

As eight o'clock rolled around, it became very noticeable that our four-foot high tide at noon was on its way up fast, accompanied by more and more-frequent swells. Seeing the ford filling up fast with white water, we hied ourselves back to the shore before being converted to shark bait.

Next, we tried fishing from various rocks lining the shore to the left of the point. Thanks to a lack of bobber wiggles, it quickly became evident the fish weren't hanging around this neck of the water, so we pulled up a log and sat there mulling over the day and tallying our twelve-or-so fish to be hauled up the hill.

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