A stop at the usual slime pit this morning on the way to Palos Verdes revealed there still is no massive quantity of enteromorpha algae available for opaleye bait.  There was, however, a few clumps at the high tide mark, which made for slightly less than a ¼ scoop of the strands to carry with me.

    At the Via Vicente blufftop lot the sign says one can park only between dawn and dusk.  That I arrived at 5am, around forty-five minutes before dawn didn’t deter me from unloading and scrambling down the trail.  Two years ago a P.V. cop cruised by at the same hour, saw me with my poles and stuff and just sort of kept on his patrolling way.

    I made the first casts of the Fish Trap from the acre-size rock at the bottom of the trail.  I’ve never caught anything here due to its likely status as where the crowds end up on weekends but it looks so Dang good.  Today was no different, 20 casts here and there, no hits.

    Off to the rock a quarter-mile north from where two weeks ago I nailed the ‘legal’ white seabass.  Perfect tosses to every side of the boiler rock just offshore I landed two ten-inch calicos.  I guess that’s a fair start.  Five casts to the spot I caught the sand bass last time BAM something weighty hit.  I could tell by the struggle it would be another sandy of about fifteen inches and as sure as I think I know what I’m doing, that exact fish was promptly slid into the gunnysack.  We’re not fartin’ with tide pools today.

    The bite was pretty dead as the tide began to roll in at six-thirty under a one-foot breeze-whipped swell.  That was until 6:45, when after countless casts all over the place with a blacksmith perch pattern five-inch Fish Trap, a monster almost yanked my twenty-pound baitcasting outfit out of my paws just as I was raising it for another lofty lob.

    All these sixty- to seventy-foot casts I’ve been making yet the monster lurked at my feet.  On the initial run I thought the line was going to break before I could react to loosen the star drag a bit.  See, with not so much line dispatched from the reel there is less stretch as a buffer.  I held on for dear life for three major pulls, until the next swell rolled in, which I used to escort the behemoth up onto the rock behind me for gaffing.

   WHOA-ZA this calico is huge, pretty much the biggest one of my 30-year calico career!  I hefted it over to the staging area, wheighed it, snapped a pic and stowed it away with the other guy.

    If that ain’t enough to get ya goin’, I tossed like a wild man from rock to rock but with the sun on the rise only futility was landed.

    As I saw some breezers swim by, I pinned on a frozen whole anchovy to my opaleye bobber rig and let that drift out with the current.  The float eventually disappeared, I cranked like crazy but with all the slack in the line all I reeled up was a bait head.

    Next I pinned the ’chovy through the middle and let it drift.  In ten minutes the rig was pretty far out there and the bobber went down again.  Identical slack, similar results, as I reeled in a bait tail.  This went on for another two casts, each time something skillfully biting the bait just shy of the hook.

    Before the day grew too old I wanted to see if any opaleye were around.  I walked back to the spot I described last time by a flow of gutter water where some algae was caked onto a concrete slab at the high tide mark.  I grabbed some of that and a few handfuls of peas to chum the area before jumping atop a perfect casting rock.  I wound on some of the strands of enteromorpha harvested from the slime pit around the 1/0 hook and stuck the bobber rig out there.  BORING.  The ocean from Point Dume to Mexico is still a bit warm for the swarms of my blue-eyed buddies to be a viable force.  Looks like I should wait until I see some listed in the daily dock totals before I get too into it.  Right now it’s all tuna, dorado, yellowtail, bonito, barracuda and bass.  Before calling it a day I tried the chum-and-cast trick to a few more areas that looked great for opaleye but had no takers on the green bait.

    Over at the Busy Bee sandwich shop in San Pedro I dragged the storekeepers outside to show off my huge calico.  Ryan kept saying, huge eh?  It better be over six pounds.  I kept replying, it better be.  I opened the cooler, lifted it out, he says WHOA-ZA that is huge!  I said yup, six pounds seven ounces, a full pound better than my previous best.

    After I rinsed all my stuff and put it away upon arriving home, I phoned my best calico buddies in the world, Breakwalls Darryl and Mabe.  Darryl, I enthused, I caught the biggest calico in my life today!  He wondered, is it as big as mine?  Well no I wasn’t talking about your life.  See he caught a twelve pounder from the SS Crestliner last year fishing about a mile from where I stood this morning.  Mabe, I proudly stated, I caught the biggest calico in my life today!  He inquired, was it as big as mine?  Well no you bastards.  Mabe caught one of nine pounds one night from the Redondo breakwall like twenty years ago.  No matter I’m still proud and I kept his head as a trophy for show-and-tell.

*****

From Raz:

Hello Mike;  Thanks for sending the newsletter; I sure do like to read what’s going on out your way. I finally got some pictures done, I attached them I hope I did it correctly, let me know if you can’t get them to come up.  As you can tell they good sized crappy weighed in at 1&1/4 pounds we would have more of them but the people controlling the dam keep yanking the water around so the fish get pretty paranoid and run to deeper water when they take it down a little, and it takes awhile for them to come in and get settled.  The Bass was early in the year, under our dock, still was not to many taken this year at all, they seem to stay away this time, real bummer!! When they have a Bass tournament they do the weigh in and release just around the bend from us, so we most of the time get some big ones in here, but not this year!! Have caught some small ones but still waiting for the BUCKET MOUTH to come along.   Thanks again for the updates and take care. 

Tim.

*****

From Breakwall Jerry:

Hi Mike,

Back home again after a somewhat successful trip. The hunting was good, but the fishing didn't take place.

We hunted on private land in Wyoming and each of us got a deer on the first day. The rain, snow, cold and wind cancelled fishing for several days and when we did venture out on the lake my buddies outboard motor didn't motor. Not knowing if he could get the motor fixed in a short time made me decide to cut the trip to two weeks instead of three weeks.

Jerry

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