For our last scheduled trip until November to fish high tide somewhere, I picked the area around Long Point on the Palos Verdes Peninsula due to the swell chart displaying a north-west swell crashing in at four to six feet.  This spot faces south-east, meaning its wasters will be calm as they’re protected by Point Vicente.

    At the Colorado Lagoon slime pit this morning it took me almost thirty minutes to rake in a quarter-scoop of enteromorpha algae opaleye bait.  You might remember The Breakwall Angler reporting five weeks ago the algae was of the most high quality, longest gooiest strand in history, then in our report two weeks ago we predicted the heavy downpours of February would have likely wiped out the growth and it would take another month without rain to bloom in full once more.  I am one with the scum, as my prediction was true.  I was forced to walk up and down the mud banks picking up chunk upon minor pine needle-laden chunk of short-strand greenery before the subliminal slimeometer deep inside whatever brain I have left pegged to the F mark.

    This brought me to my first fish hole past dawn.  Slightly bummed by this fact, I tied my rope to the Opaleye Point railing and scaled down, making my first cast with the opaleye enteromorpha bobber rig tied to the fifteen pound outfit by 06:15.  Conditions were perfect here, an occasional two-foot set would roll in, stirring things up a bit, but as per usual fishing from a high rock to the right of this point, it’s hit or miss.  Today it was miss.  I detected only one bite in an hour.  Time to move on.

    At Long Point my first casts with the bait was tossed at the exact high tide mark at 7:23.  Conditions were perfect here too, an occasional clear water four-foot set crashing in.  Immediately I had hits and within five re-baitings the float went down and I was tied onto a fighter that felt like a three-pound opaleye.  Dang me, it was a two-pound zebraperch.  These things always fake me out as pound for pound they fight harder than the targeted opaleye.  This detritus eater was thrown back as I have found they don’t taste good.

    Next cast was the hot ticket, a nice three-taco opaleye was bounced up onto my casting rock.  In the next hour I had several hits, hooking and landing four more opaleye between two and three tacos, or one and one-and-a-half pounds.

    In the next hour, the bites were less as the tide zoomed out and a scuba diver and two sea lions moved in.  This diver was actually courteous, entering the intertidal zone past where I was casting, unlike the other 90% of divers who insist on jumping in right in front of you.  One of the sea lines looked to be a juvenile, but the other was Big Daddy, a beast that looks to weigh a ton, possibly the same guy I’ve seen hanging out around here for the past five years.  The pair popped their heads above the water and saw the spear-toting diver, and me throwing bubbles at them, and they just kind of cruised on down the beach in search of another haul-out.

    At nine I was just about done.  Time for the hail Mary of opaleye fishing.  I took half of the bait I had left and chummed the whole thing in front of me.  Ten minutes later just behind the white water of the last wave set the bobber went down and I was tied into the largest opaleye of the day, a toad eyeballing in at two pounds.

    I gave it another hour, having three more solid strikes that didn’t stick to the 1/0 Owner Flyliner hook.  Today’s final tally:  1 Zebraperch, 6 Opaleye.

    Up at the parking lot I thanked the diver for not messing up my honey hole.  He said he saw a huge calico bass near where I was fishing.  If you didn’t notice, this is the first trip in many years I didn’t start off by tossing the five-inch Fish Trap before picking up the opaleye pole.  That’ll teach my bASS.  Also I asked where he saw all the opaleye, he said right where I was casting there was a bunch of ’em.  He said he has seen ten-pound opaleye a little way from the shore, most likely out of casting distance.  Having dived many times I have found everything looks twice as big in the water but I’ll take a five-pounder any day.

*****

From Dov in response of our 2/26 Balboa trip:

mmm. Shrimp tacos. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I too had bad luck this weekend. Bro-in-law and I fished for hours on Sunday for Large Mouth with no luck... Well... except for 2 carp on 2 lb. test. I think I would have rather just been skunked :-)) I am hoping that since we have had a break in the weather times will get better. I am not sure if I shared with you the picture of my first "Snail Lake" bass. Also sharing one of my bro. This was from 2 weeks ago. 2 fish for 10 hours of fishing. Everyone says this lake is so easy to fish. They say one could have 100 fish-in-one-day just like the old days.... I am not holding my breath.

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