Breakwall Tim's readings of recent The Breakwall Angler stupid fish stories was just the catalyst needed to re-ignite his quelled burning desire for opaleye…or whatever else swims the waters of Palos Verdes. He was here at our offices at 4:30 this morning.

This early hour ensured we would have plenty of dark time in case there would be hungry calicos or white seabass around to eat our plastic Fish Trap lures. When we arrived at the gate that guards the entrance into the old Marineland property, it was as expected locked at 05:15.

Breakwall Darryl and I worked out an alternate parking plan to be used in just this case. We met him at the end of a nearby cul-de-sac where last week during a reconnaissance mission I found a staircase leading from the neighborhood sidewalk up to P.V. drive south, right next to the gate.

The only drawback is that it's about a half-mile hike to our new hot spot at Long Point. What I found last week was there were two other ways to access the point before the Westec guard decided to open the locks. Park at the Point Vicente Fishing Access lot and scamper along a Dangerous cliff in the dark, or park at Opaleye Point, go down that trail, slip and stumble along a cove, go over the dreaded hump to finally join up with the dirt road that leads you there. Each of the three ways were equally as long, but we chose the easy one.

All this effort to find legal parking and a relatively uncomplicated stroll down there was rebuffed when after scaling a new chain-link fence the landlord installed since last week, we found the swells at high tide coming three feet over our intended rocks.

The only other place to fish around this area when the tide is high and the swells are mighty is over at the cave rock. Since sunrise was as of yet, all three of us started off the day with Fish Traps. Darryl went over the hump to fish the ledge, while Tim and I cast from the end of the rock. Each of us made at least a score of slings with the plastics before switching over to our enteromorpha rigs. It seemed the bass weren't biting.

The same could be said for the opaleye. After extensive chumming with some of the uglier short-strand algae, twenty minutes went by before fish activity of any sort exhibited itself. On the other side of the kelp strands I saw a spraying of sardines followed by a bass boil atop the water. I reeled in my bobber and ran up to reemploy my Fish Trap unit. I managed to splash the lure Dang close to where I saw the boil and after fifteen cranks of the baitcaster's handle, I felt a smallish fish on, but for only a few seconds. I looked over at Darryl to see if he saw me hook up but he was over there busy with his own fight with a three taco opaleye.

While my concentration was focused somewhere it shouldn't have been, I felt my lure stop, figuring it was hung up on some of the either rocks or kelp that was omnipresent in front of me. But no, my rod went bendo and my cinched drag succumbed to the pressure of what I immediately knew was a big calico. I hollered, "Big bass, big bass," for all to hear, then Darryl looked up and Tim ran over with the net. The fish held its water very well trying to ditch itself under a ledge near the outer rock. But in the end my seventeen-pound-test and I prevailed, with myself saying, "Wait 'till you see this one," to Tim. Due to the off-color and murkiness of the water, it didn't come within sight until it was less than a foot below the surface. At that point Tim dipped the net and a small surge of water pushed it in.

A quick look guesstimated the behemoth at four pounds eight ounces. Official weigh-in later on revealed the fish was exactly that size. It sucked the whole five-inch lure and leadhead all the way into its stomach. Usually they're hooked through the skull just behind the upper lip. Tim was all impressed, saying gee, those breakwall stories are really true. Hell yes!

Just for funzies, I cast the Fish Trap five more times before returning to enteromorpha.

Tim and I weren't having much luck at the Cave Rock, so we joined Darryl over at the ledge, where he already had two opaleye to his credit with one little guy tossed back.

With nothing going on by 7:30, the three of us went back to Long Point to see if access to the hot spot could be had a half-hour past high tide. We stood there near the stepping stones waiting to see what the largest of the swells would do. When one hit, I deemed it safe since barely a splash was coming over, compared to just an hour earlier. I was the first to hop over, starting off with the ever-productive Fish Trap. Ten casts and no hits, I put it down for the enteromorpha outfit. As the sunlight was already too bright for bass, it was time for opaleye.

It took a while, but fifteen minutes into it I had my first nibble. I reeled in, re-baited and cast anew. Seconds later, hook-up, a fat three taco opaleye joined the bagged bass. Next, Tim climbed aboard and without haste jumped over to the outer rock. For a while he only watched as again my bobber went down, leading to another three-taco opaleye being slipped into the gunnysack.

Darryl, seeing two fish bounced on the rock, finally decided to join us. After he cast he had hits, but nothing was sticking to the hook. That was sort of the case for Tim and I too. Lots of bites, but no landings. Alas Tim's rod took a dip and he was reeling in the day's largest opaleye weighing in at two pounds.

Long Point, a major protrusion into the water from the main peninsula, is generally hard hit by the wind since it's not protected by the bluffs. The swells, however large they were, are nothing like what happens at Point Vicente, which is in sight from there, where twelve-footers were crashing in. This in turn reduced the swells' size to four feet by the time they reached us. The Swell Chart predicted it would be this way. Before I left, I logged on to see that off Point Conception the swell was over seven feet, and that some of it was at such an angle to allow it to sneak past the Channel Islands and right into Redondo Beach, Rocky Point, and Point Vicente.

Anyway, we were all tired of dodging the wave splash and having our bobbers blown clear to Catalina, so by 9:30 we were out of there with one bass and five opaleye between us. In conclusion, I'd say don't bother to fish Long Point unless the swell off Point Conception is four feet or less.

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