Palos Verdes 6/21
This week I was on vacation. Wednesday, my pal Hiker Steve and I summited Telescope Peak in Death Valley National Park. The trailhead at Mahogany Flats is 8000 feet then you climb 3000 feet in 7 miles to 11000. Spectacular views of Panamint Valley and Deatch Valley were had. Here are the photos.
To end vacation week, I fished Palos Verdes low tide this morning. I was up at 01:30 then dressed, fed and out the door by 02:15.
I arrived at the blufftop curbside parking before 04:00. It took 50 minutes to walk to the farthest rocks south, almost to the border of the Point Vicente SMCA, where I never see anyone fishing. It wasn’t very good there. The Swell Chart predicted one-to-two-foot surf, and again, like the past two trips here, this zone was wiped out. I cast maybe ten times in the burgeoning morning light but had no hits. I ended up losing my five-inch WildEye Sardine to a rock.
I backtracked to the fun rocks I fished last time and the time before. It wasn’t easy due to what in reality looked to be a three-foot swell. Even the Coast Guard on marine channel 22A issued a small craft warning from Point Conception to the Mexican border.
It was already 06:00. I usually catch the big ones an hour before that. I was lucky today, as I had one bite on the third cast with a second WildEye sardine and then a good hook-up four casts later, which to my surprise, resulted in the landing of a calico bass wheighing three pounds twelve ounces. I slipped the big one into my gunnysack for Sunday night dinner.
That was enough motivation to spend the next two hours casting all over this relatively kelp-free area. I did land one other calico but it was way under the fourteen-inch legal minimum.
After photos I checked a few of my favorite casting rocks on the way back to the truck. All were inaccessible due to waves, kelp and muddy water, which is caused by two small landslides in the area.