Opaleye Point 4/27
A little after four this morning Breakwall Dan was shotgun in Li’l Miracle as we beelined to Colorado Lagoon to rake in some enteromorpha opaleye green bait. Dang me the whole place was devoid of the stuff. Thinking ahead, both of us brought bags of frozen peas.
Cruising south on Gaffey Street in San Pedro en route to Opaleye Point along the Palos Verdes Peninsula southern coast, we noticed that not only were the skies gray to black but a cold wind was blasting through as evidenced by several flags along the way sticking straight out from their poles. Also, before I left home, I checked the Swell Chart, which indicated heightening waves mixing it up from both the north and south.
At the trailhead with no green bait, lots of wind and pounding surf, I thought I was too full of malcontent to fish properly. About the only thing keeping me going was the fact that coming here is just too darn far not to fish.
Viewing the Platform Rock from the top of the bluff I saw that a few waves were splashing up but not the constant beating I anticipated. The minus tide allowed quick access to the staging rock where I began this beautiful day by slipping into my rain suit so that I wouldn’t freeze in the wind after getting soaked.
For once the wind was a blessing, which cheered me up. From the rock I had access to a fifty-or-so yard stretch of thick kelp. Once I launched the five-inch Fish Trap into the air it sailed effortlessly to the farthest reaches of the underwater forest.
On my first cast I felt a hit. As I raised the lure out of the water I saw kelp bass (a.k.a calico bass) teeth marks puncturing the fresh, soft plastic. Next cast, WHAMMO, I was on. I immediately noticed my Ambassadeur 5000 baitcasting reel was messing up when a fish applied pressure to it. It felt like the star drag was hitting the spool tensioner knob. In mid-crank I adjusted the knob away from the star but still I couldn’t reel in as fast as I would have liked. I haven’t caught anything with it for so long I didn’t know something was wrong. Anyway, the first fourteen-inch calico of the day was inserted into the gunnysack.
Within the next few fan casts I was on big time. I set the hook and the monster peeled off the seventeen-pound line from the fully tightened drag as it powered it way into the safety of the kelp strands. Again my reel wasn’t handling the job, as I had to back off and reel in slowly. Otherwise the damn thing would stop cranking as if there were a bad gear in there. While I was screwing with it, the big one got away.
I removed the mangled Fish Trap body from the leadhead and went with a fresh one in blacksmith perch color. I tossed out approximately where the previous fish hit and BAM I hooked up again, this time to another bass that felt heavy, especially seeing the fish tangled the line in a six-foot strand of kelp disconnected from the main patch. A couple attempts with the net and the two-and-a-half pound calico was on its way into the bag.
I saw Dan over there on some other rock where hook-ups were not likely. To find out why he wasn’t hanging with The King on the killer rock, I hollered, “What the hell you waitin’ for?”
Something about his tennie shoes were too slick to safely make passage. Oh well, see ya. I hopped back out to the platform and flung the swimbait out there as far as I could, making a long retrieve parallel to the edge of the kelp. After another fourteen-inch calico was landed and stored, a subsequent cast had me again hooked up to something large. I cranked the reel with all it had – which wasn’t much at this point – to get the fish up to the rock close enough to scoop it up with the net. Just to be a jerk I whooped and hollered at Breaktrip Dan while proudly displaying my catch as he melancholically sat atop a distant rock in a state of personal disgust.
In and out of the four bass I landed my reel was pissin’ me off as I must have had lost eight hook-ups to its inability. As a last resort I rigged my bobber bait outfit with a Fish Trap, then adjusted the drag of the Mitchell 302 spinning reel (yes, an original from the ‘60s) to account for the relatively light fourteen-pound line. I made several casts that ended up much farther than with the baitcaster but it seemed by this time, seven o’clock, the bass bite was over. My last try with the fish trap was when I really reared back to make a cast… accidentally smack dab in the middle of a formation of about twenty pelicans. I saw the lure splash down where I wanted it to, but my line was taking off with the flock.
Crap, I tangled up with one of the pesky birds. The thing hit the water and just kind of floated as it took me about ten minutes to reel it in the seventy-five yards it was out there. Actually I was surprised the line didn’t break off at the pelican’s wing like I wanted it to. I had to bounce it up onto the rock I was standing on then cut it off with pliers. It took flight with my lure hanging from its ass.
Meanwhile I re-rigged my spinning outfit to once again be my bobber bait rig. This time I used a number four Owner hook stacked with four or five peas. After chumming a handful of the vegetable, I flipped out and waited. I saw some nibbles but in the half hour I gave it whatever was stealing my bait was obviously too small to perk my interest.
By this time Dan was over near the M. Ledge. I too pebble-Danced my way over to fish The Plank. I tried the Fish Trap for a while with no results, then I plucked some of the small mussels from a tide pool and tried those in and out of the kelp for a half hour. Usually everything eats mussel but today there wasn’t even a single jacksmelt around to pick the meat off the hook.