Federal Breakwall 6/17
Nowadays I have Tuesday and Wednesday off. This works out well because hardly anyone goes fishing those days; I’ll have the whole place to myself a long time after the fish recover from being spooked by heavy weekend angling crowds.
Well, almost to myself. Breakwall Darryl called, saying he will have a few upcoming Wednesdays off; we should take advantage of this situation by launching his boat – the SS Chaparral –for some summer calico action.
For the past month the calico counts from local Southern California sportfishing landings have been high, along with the perfect calico water temp at 64-66 F, according to the landings and the Sea Surface Temperature Chart.
I met Darryl at the Steven M. White Drive entrance to Cabrillo Marina in San Pedro this morning at 4:45. I threw my poles, backpack and lunch box into the boat; we were in the water and under way by 5:30.
The sensor on the fish finder was reporting a water temp of 58, way lower than what recent indicators are reporting; quite peculiar.
First stop was to toss plastics into the kelp surrounding the ends of the Cabrillo Breakwall and the Federal Breakwall at Angels Gate. Casting his Berkeley PowerBait Jerk Shad to the edge of the weeds and letting it sink along the bottom as he reeled in towards the boat, Darryl was first to hook up to a keeper sand bass worth two tacos. It was an extraordinary catch as there really hasn’t been a sand bass bite this year... nor the past two years. The summertime hoards of the specie haven’t showed in a while.
I started with the five-inch WildEye mackerel, mimicking Darryl’s retrieve along the bottom. After ten casts I snagged and lost it. I retied with the go-to jerk shad with a 3/8 standup leadhead. I cast it away from the rocks and into the channel, letting it sink almost to the bottom and landed a short-by-an-eighth-of-an-inch sandie. In that time Darryl was dropping a keeper calico into the cooler.
After an hour we went in search of the log sticking out of the Federal Breakwall he uses as a marker from where you start the boat drifting along the world’s best calico habitat. Problem with today there was neither a breeze nor any current. All the kelp was for the most part sticking straight up. Combine that with the lower water temps and you get a half-limit day.
A hundred feet from the rocks, Darryl worked the trolling motor to keep us slowly moving along as we cast into sparse kelp with the jerk shads for several calicos. Most were under the twelve inch limit – only three were kept – including this fourteen inch specimen by Darryl.
Darryl hooked up again, and then by eight our drift ran out of fish. For a while we cast our bottom rigs to see if we could hook some of the blips the fish finder showed just up from the sea floor. I brought some frozen sardines but after being in my freezer over a month, they were rotten nasty. I caught a white croaker (released) after having two ‘dines shredded by smoothhounds.
I tried to catch bait with a Sabiki dangling down from my jerk shad. At first I landed a blacksmith but it was too big for bait. Next, as I reeled in a perfect-size topsmelt, my Sabiki detached from my line because I didn’t tie it on correctly. I had handy with me another such rig from Mustad. I tied it onto the end of my line securely, it attracted a school of grunion but they just looked at it without biting. In conclusion, always buy the Sabiki brand, tie it on properly and use a one-ounce torpedo as ballast.
Next we fished inside the harbor for halibut by dragging frozen squid strips along the flats just east of the new container mole along Navy Way. To my hook I pinned a squid head in order to imitate a baby octopus. In no time I reeled in a small bat ray of six pounds.
After an hour of that boredom, we went back to the end of the Federal wall, where Darryl lifted out another keeper sandie. I caught another calico but it was short.
At ten we pulled the boat out of the water and as we were arranging its contents to prepare for the drive home, a Fish And Game guy came along to check our catch. Of the seven sand and calico bass we had on ice, the size of one was rather dicey. If he were to decide to measure it, someone might have received a ticket. He was cool about it and said, nice catch, see ya.
*****
From Chuck L.:
*****
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