By the time I exited my ass out the door yesterday morning, it was already starting to get light. Seemed I needed to start fishing at 5:15 instead of driving. The main reason would be that the calicos bite before sunrise. Also, I hadn't seen another soul fishing our spot at Opaleye Point for so long, I forgot about the competition factor, the other reason to not be late.

Moments after I pulled up to the curb, a compact rolled in with three breakwall anglers who jumped out, grabbed their stuff and ran down the trail. Oh man, there's only one place to fish down there that's any good at low tide, they'll for sure set up camp there before I can. My only hope was that after they hop over the railing near the cliff, they'd hesitate momentarily before starting their descent down the steep part and I can whiz past them real quick.

Well, at least two of them stopped. One was helping the other down the rock face, with the helpee saying, "Joe, let this guy go." Eeow, there I went. However, angler number one was in front of me jogging down the trail at the same pace as my fastest run.

As the two of us reached the shoreline, he stopped to look back expecting to see one of his pals behind him, but no, it was me zooming past straight for the staging rock. I looked back and saw him start running for a rock about a hundred yards to the left. Cool, the platform was all mine.

I smoothly hoped and climbed the rocks like a human crab, laid out all my equipment in the staging area, strapped on my angling belt, extended the net handle, grabbed my seventeen-pound baitcaster and jumped out to the platform to begin casting an anchovy pattern Big Hammer with a leadhead that had fish eyes glued to it for realness. Looking back to see where the other fishermen went, the slow guy down the hill was taking this all in.

Just as I was muttering to myself about how light it was already, about the tenth cast I felt the distinctive tap-tap of a fish on. I swung the rod and started cranking. After I had it on my side of the nearby rocks and kelp, I felt it turn. I knew it was going to be big because it pulled like I was hung up on the bottom. But then it came toward me taking out drag to the left and then to the right. Although it felt weighty, it was subdued without much fuss. I put the net whoop in the water and let the calico swim into the mesh, then lifted the handle up and into the air. The slow guy was right behind the staging rock watching the whole thing. "You knew it had to happen. Get here early!" I joyfully shouted. I walked up to where my sack was laying and slipped the four-pound eleven-ounce bass therein. "Hey there's room for two out here."

So, Breakwall Ron jumps out to the platform and starts casting his anchovy Fish Trap here and there just like me. I said you know we're late. He said he knows, and that the three of them tried to fish Hagerty's earlier, but the waves were too big and it was raining. Looking over that way, you could barely see any semblance of a rain cloud. A few miles back over here, the skies were blue and bright.

While we were chatting, he felt a hit but wasn't rewarded with a hook-set. He did reel in a rubber, as he calls them, with two lacerations near its tail section, indicating something big, mean and nasty was waiting below.

As soon as the sun rose above Portuguese Point, Ron took off and I switched over to my opaleye enteromorpha bobber rig. It was slow going for a while. I didn't have my first hit until seven. A couple bites later I hooked one that put up some good resistance. Soon I was lifting a two-pound two-ounce opaleye for all to see. The three of them were fishing some rocks close by to the right of the point.

It was kind of breezy, the water was riled up a bit, but the wave action wasn't as ebullient as it was last month when we caught a bunch. Conditions seemed right. But no, for the second trip in a row I can report only meager results from our storied rock. I caught one other one-pound opaleye by seven-thirty, then had no more hits by nine when I left.

Today I made it a point to start fishing before light. I was up at four and out the door at four-thirty. At the platform rock casting the Big Hammer straight out as far as possible, it was still dark enough to not be able to see where the lure was splashing down. By the time I gave up today's quest for another bass, I made scores of casts and broke off two of the jigs after having them bond to the rocks.

I chummed a wad of enteromorpha, then snatched my opaleye bobber outfit. In the first half-hour, I had no hits using this set-up, which to me indicated an early day.

I heard a cough coming from behind the stage and there was Breakwall Ron again ready to jump out to try his luck with his Fish Trap. We ended up shootin' the crap about big ones and locations. He gave me the hot tip on a couple more interesting places around Palos Verdes to someday investigate.

He asked if I knew how big the world record opaleye is. I said last I heard it was something like seven pounds. He said oh no, it's eleven pounds. It's on display at Wylie's Bait in Malibu. I wondered if he had ever fished that area and he said sure lots of times. I've wanted to go up there for opaleye for a while so I gave him my card and said call me and we'll make a pilgrimage to see King Kong Opaleye and fish the next low tide in a couple weeks.

Meanwhile, he went home fishless at seven-thirty, and I the same at eight.

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