It was exciting to read lately that the white seabass are finally in town. Most of the large ones are hanging around Santa Barbara and Catalina islands meaning a few small to moderate sized specimens are likely setting up camp along the shores of Palos Verdes.

Hopefully this camp would be Opaleye Point. Yesterday morning I tried to make it to the platform rock to commence the flinging of the five-inch blacksmith perch pattern Fish Trap before first light but found it too difficult to awake myself after only three hours of post-work sleep. Alas, I made it down there by 05:20.

I didn't have my first bite until a quarter to six. It struck about ten feet outside the rocks and kelp that lie in front of the platform. At first it felt small as it came right in without much resistance. As soon as it was on the inside of the strands it turned with enough vigor to feel like about a three-pound calico. I had the drag of the seventeen-pound bait-casting outfit buttoned down and the fish wasn't big enough to take any out. It did pull hard a couple times, at which point I stopped cranking the reel to allow it to swim around a bit. When it came to color, I could see it was indeed a white seabass of about five pounds, probably eight inches short of legal. I can't tell exactly what size it was because the last pull he made broke the jig off the line. I surmised the fish swallowed the lure past the lead head and bit through. Seabass have rows of wickedly sharp teeth.

Now that I was confident the specie I was after was present, I kept on casting another of the same swimbaits until the sun rose above San Pedro Hill. In that time, say an hour-and-a-half, I had several tap-tap type hits, never really feeling a big pull. To me this indicates little guys half-heartedly pouncing on the jig.

Sun's up, time to switch over to the enteromorpha bobber opaleye rig. I chummed and hung out until 07:45 but failed to notice anything resembling interest from opaleye.

As per the usual program, I drove over to Marineland to fish Long Point. The waves were up a bit, but that didn't stop me from casting the Fish Trap from the pillar rock. With no takers within a half-hour, I tried enteromorpha from a rock to the left of the point during incoming tide.

In the next hour-and-a-half I managed to bag only two two-taco opaleye. Otherwise it was pretty dead for that specie around these parts.

That evening I phoned Breakwall Darryl to inform him we might have a chance at a white seabass Monday morning. He couldn't make it thanks to work but he did mention that his pal Ralphie took the S.S. Ralphie to Torrance Beach where he hooked and boated a guesstimated fifty-pounder! I say guesstimated because neither of them own a scale but he described it as dragging on the floor as Ralphie held the fish's head up even with top of his own. That makes it over five feet long!

This morning I had better luck getting there early. I started casting from the platform rock at Opaleye Point at 04:10. First noticeable light was at 04:57. By 06:00 I had already landed three non-keeper calico bass of eleven inches each and had several other hits but no white seabass to show for my efforts.

And as the same old story goes, I tried enteromorpha until 07:45 then drove over to fish to the left of Long Point, yet zero opaleye were landed.

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