Palos Verdes 4/22
The Breakwall crew is looking forward to warm weather in April to heat up the water at Diamond Valley Lake and then May gray June gloom drizzly Saturday mornings for a round or two of largemouth bass. This past week Monday and Tuesday both had this type of perfect bass weather but the lake is closed those days and we haven’t had the typical April heat wave as of yet.
Meanwhile, the swell chart showed one- to two-foot surf hitting Palos Verdes to go along with today’s -0.7 low tide at 05:40. Breakwall Wook met me at the blufftop curbside parking and as we descended the trail at 04:30, we indeed heard the swell was small, barely making any noise as it lapped against the pebbly beach.
Twenty minutes later to the south, we were casting from Big Bass Rock, where the swell was noticeably larger but nothing crazy. I was flinging my WildEye Sardine using a new reel, an Ambassadeur 7000CS Pro Rocket with long cast. It felt great, very smooth casting with no backlash and high-speed retrieve, a perfect match for this style of fishing. Another reason I bought it was to stash my current 7000G in my pack for a backup in case of critical failure of the primary reel.
After maybe fifteen minutes and many casts, we moved over to the farthest rocks of the day at Golden Cove. Here we found satisfactory water conditions with small swell and no kelp, perfect for fishermen. I suggested to Wook he start casting from a certain rock where I always catch a calico while I sought rocks a little further into the cove. The first cast I made I noticed something wrong with my brand-new reel. It felt like the spool bent. Crap. I slipped on a rock a few minutes earlier and my reel must have hit hard. I looked but didn’t notice any scratches. I wasn’t sure what happened. After three casts I swapped it out with the backup reel.
This early in the session and already two of my predictions came true. I needed a backup reel and Wook nailed a nice 12-inch calico from the prescribed rock using a brown sparkly swimbait that resembles a senorita on a 1 ½ ounce jig head.
Back in action, I had a good hit at the back of the cove and then looked over to see Wook hook another even larger calico using a green sparkly curly-tail jig. By this time, he also had at least two hits that got off.
Around seven o’clock we cast our way to the outside where we encountered an ever-rising swell that appeared to include sets of three footers creating a foam slick that was not there ten minutes ago. After trying a few spots here, we decided to make another circuit starting near the beach, where the swell was much calmer, but I don’t remember either of us halving any hits.
As the swell increased, our enthusiasm decreased. We stuck it out for another hour but never had another hit. As the sun rose, we could tell the water was not only riled up but also dirty, which is why the bright green sparkly plastic curly jig was producing all the action and my more conservative-looking WildEye was not. I tied one of Wook’s lures just for funzies but after maybe 20 casts the day was starting to really suck.
We moseyed slowly back toward the parking zone chatting up some of the other friendly fishermen along the way, including Homie who showed me a fresh two-taco black surfperch. One other guy with one of those fifteen-foot cane poles caught a 12-inch calico using a grocery store prawn.
Back at Christmas Tree Cove a diver dude walked by pointing to a rock not connected to shore saying all his buddies saw many calicos hanging on the outside. Thanks for the tip.
Back at home I removed the spool from my new reel and noticed the spindle on the left side was bent. I easily corrected the issue with pliers and now it’s fixed. The cast adjust cap had a dent, meaning when I fell that’s where the reel hit the rock. I ordered three new cap assemblies from Reelparts.net for $16.50 including shipping.
I will take a break from P. V. for a month. If we have a one- or two-foot swell on May 20 I’ll be back.