Sunday

My second shift job gets me home Saturday nights just in time for Live at the Apollo. As I rigged my three rods for the morning, I fell out listening to the stand-up guy, who was going off about the subtle differences between types of fishermen. Next time I see you I'll have to practice a few of his lines on you.

The fish trap I was tying on to the seventeen pound outfit was a little chewed up after using it two weeks ago to catch a pair of bass. Usually their soft plastic flesh lasts only one, maybe two fish before they're too smashed to reuse. This one was barely hanging in there, but at buck thirty-five apiece I deemed it to have forty-five cents worth of action left.

Because of the outgoing tide we were to have Sunday morning, I was psyched to start fishing before light to better my chances at whatever bass were foraging about. Breakwall Darryl and I were thinking about heading over the hump to fish Long Point, but we decided the water was low and calm enough to fish the plank near the Marineland ledge while we waited for the tide to ebb far enough to access the platform at Opaleye Point. I dropped everything and hurried my Fish Trap down to the end of the ledge and into the small kelp patch that's recovering quickly from last year's El Nino. I made five result-less fan casts by the time Darryl was beside me ready to go with his opaleye enteromorpha bobber rig. He was talking smack about how the water was too cold for there to be any bass around for me to catch.

After fifteen more casts, it was becoming apparent he might be right. I kept at it and on about the twenty-fifth fling it happened. I felt a tap-tap transmitted up the line through the graphite rod and into my hand. I reared back and started cranking like a wildman. At first it felt like I was going to be disappointed as the fish came right in without much resistance during the initial fifteen twists of the handle. Alas, I felt it turn, giving my rod a big bend, even pulling a few feet of line from the tightly buttoned-down drag. All of a sudden it felt sizeable enough to request net detail from my partner. Crap, the last screw holding the net’s rim to the handle popped out after it snagged a bush on the way down the trail. I ended up bouncing the calico up onto the rocks. It appeared to me to be about three pounds, but Darryl looked and said, nope, more like two-and-a-half. The Normark scale said 2-9. My, what a nice eye that Darrlydog has.

Needless to say, that was the end of service for the now shredded Fish Trap body. I retied, pinned another five-inch Trap in blacksmith perch pattern to the leadhead and walked back out to make more casts. I usually stop fishing for bass after sunrise. In the fifteen minutes I had left I had what felt like another hit. It’s hard to tell when there’s so much kelp growing whether the lure grazed a leaf or was molested by a fish. I inspected the new body for teeth marks and found gouges on the small of the tail, which almost severed the lure in half. That bit of action was the hot incentive to keep me flinging plastic for bass past my normal cut-off time, or when Darryl’s bobber started wiggling, indicating the outset of the daily opaleye frenzy.

About fifteen minutes after sunrise is when it started to happen. I grabbed my ten pound outfit and cast a splitshotted hook full of bait near where Darryl was getting all his nibbles. Seconds later I had a line going out which resulted in a keeper opaleye of three tacos. Into the tide pool it went. Next cast, bingo. Another ’eye of the same size.

Not to be outdone, Darryl’s first fish of the day was an opaleye weighing in at two pounds two ounces, nearly as big as the bass I caught.

The opaleye bite was pretty good there for a while. We combined for ten, keeping the four largest. Some specimens were quite small and tossed back. At eight o’clock, the action waned so we looked around to feel how conditions were. We could see waves splashing up and over the rocks at Long Point making the decision to head back to Opaleye Point to fish the platform an easy one.

Throughout the years we have found that to access the platform, the tide must be two feet or lower combined with calm water, which is exactly what we had today. Everything was groovy until we climbed up the staging rock to find it covered by a fresh coating of guano. I had to breathe through my mouth to not be sickened by the smell.

Even though it was half past bass time, I tried fan casting the Fish Trap for ten minutes before I joined my partner for opaleye. We were quite relieved that our good ol’ spot was producing so. In the small zone to the left of the platform, we started tuna-boating the opaleye like no tomorrow and they were all big. There wasn’t anything caught under a pound, and all the ones we kept were over a pound and a half.

After I had one bass and thirteen opaleye in my bag, I told Darryl that unless he is keeping some, start letting them all go. He thought that was kind of strange coming from me since I usually keep both our limits each day. It wasn’t that I was only thinking of stocking my currently empty freezer, I was more worried about the pain in the arm it was going to be to hike a 35-pound bucket of fish in a wet sack and bait back up the hill. Albeit, I couldn't resist replacing a one-and-a-half with the other 2-2 for the day caught by Darryl.

So, there we stood, on our beloved rock, partaking in its every splendor, casting, hooking, releasing until ten o’clock when the bite finally ended.

*****

Monday

This morning I awoke a bit later so it would be light by the time I arrived at Opaleye Point. I sacrificed whatever early bass bite might occur so I could see well enough to be able to cross to the platform without causing great bodily harm to myself. When I got there I could see alright, see that I would have to wait about an hour before the tide would be low enough to make it out.

So what to do. To beguile some time before the waters parted, I fished from a rock about fifty yards to the left of the point. I started the same boring way, with a Fish Trap fan cast all over the place for fifteen minutes...with no hits.

Next came the fifteen-pound opaleye enteromorpha bobber rig. I had to chum three times before the opaleye came around. It was a close-in bite as the four I caught there were hooked in three or four feet of water. All and all the action wasn't that good and the fish were kind of small compared to yesterday.

Before too long the platform was ready for me. All morning the rocks had been occupied by various birds and mammals but they all scattered out of my way as I stepped up to cross.

Okay, so what do you do first? Right. Fan cast the Fish Trap for ten minutes with no bites before switching over to the opaleye enteromorpha bobber rig. Then what do you use after you catch a couple pounder-size opaleye and notice lots of nibbles? Right. The ten-pound splitshot outfit.

Baby, it was just as killer as yesterday. I added six more fatties to the catch count from the other rock to make ten opaleye by eight-thirty. After that I had to suit up against a light rain to keep fishing until they stopped biting. In the next hour-and-a-half, I was able to replace seven three-taco fish with four-taco one-and-a-half pounders. The largest of the day went two pounds exactly.

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