A few years ago, ex-pal Chuck (hi Chuck) told me about some rocks near Dana Point, from whence he saw an angler hiking a bucket-load of three-pound opaleye back to the nearby parking lot. I was supposed to meet him there one day with some enteromorpha but I failed to show due to what I perceived was foul weather.

Well, I finally made it down there. What happened was I moved about an hour-and-something away from my beloved Opaleye Point, so I needed to find another fish hole that’ll be a little less of a drive.

Monday the fourth I went on a rod-less scouting sortie. It was a lovely day to motor west along Ortega Highway, which with its mountainous overlooks is so much prettier than ugly-old Western Avenue. Negatively, it’s a freakin’ hour-and-five-minutes to get there.

I didn’t have any directions written down, albeit out of memory I found the parking lot and stairs leading down to the beach Chuckie told me about. The last detail I should have encountered for this to be the spot would be the rocks in the direction of left as I reached the sand. Damn, there they were about a half-mile over there, with a bluff looming above just like Palos Verdes.

Jeez, how perfect, I thought, as I perched myself upon a boulder and gazed into the clear, wave-less water. I knew these conditions weren’t the norm here, as they are not anywhere along the South Coast. From a vantage point I could have only made it out to during a tide like this morning’s calm low, I could see perfect opaleye habitat stretch for at least a mile southward.

I had planned on fishing the next week during a high tide. Of course everything would change by that time, so I looked back toward the cliff’s base to see which rocks I might utilize then. I climbed up to a likely spot and looked down to see several gaps between boulders and kelp that, when flooded by high tide, would allow our bobber rigs to work without becoming snagged.

I attempted to rock-hop further but was greeted with an impassible chasm filled so much that one would have to wade even at low tide up to their armpits to be able to proceed along. But what the hell, I needed not venture farther. I already saw enough accessible environment to make a trip worthwhile.

While I was in the area, I drove a few miles north, past the Ritz-Carlton, to a public parking lot with a name that escapes me. There, a half-mile to the north of the lot, I spotted a natural line of rocks protruding into the water, looking like a quarter-mile-long breakwall. Studying it more with binoculars, it for sure was only accessible during low tide. I’ll likely wait until March to try that spot for calico and sand bass.

Just for funzies, I drove south to Dana Harbor and parked near the marine sanctuary headquarters to see how I might hike to Dana Point starting from there. A sign posted at the water’s edge warned potential anglers and spear divers that part of the harbor’s breakwall and over a mile of shoreline north toward the stairs is closed to all manner of taking fish, crustaceans and mollusks. At least the sign I read at the top of the stairs earlier said it’s allowable to take mackerel, bass and perch. I would only hope the warden who stops to check me considers opaleye to be perch. Funny thing was the sign near the harbor also had a map indicating the rocks I was so jazzed about might be covered by the no-take rules even though over there the other sign said take-okay. Hey Chuck, what do make out of all this?

*****

As fate would have it, three days before I was to meet Breakwall Dan at the parking lot, a swell storm struck the coast, causing the fishability rating of the Dana Point rocks to lower to zero. During that time period I kept vigilance over the swell chart and saw that by Monday morning October 11, at 3:45, the waves were down to only five feet. Right, we’re supposed to fish in that?

I knew what we would be up against, but I carried on and met Dan at the lot anyway. We marched down the stairs to the beach and headed toward the rocks, all the way in the dark of dawn listening to the pounding surf. Upon reaching the rocks, we scrambled to the spot where we had to use a rope — already tied to a rock above — to hoist ourselves over a hump. Past the hump we witnessed splash after geyser-like splash pounding the zone where we were to cast our bobbers. We sat for a while pondering but with more of morning’s light illuminating the scene it was heartbreakingly obvious we would have to salvage the day elsewhere.

Well, about the only place I could think of was Dana breakwall. We parked in the marine preserve lot and went fishing. Ain’t that a kick in the butt! Actually, the map painted on the no-take sign indicated most of the wall is legal if we were to walk out far enough.

Basically we pulled up a rock and stood there watching our bobbers do nothing for three hours before deciding there probably wasn’t anything around wanting to eat enteromorpha. Dan switched over to using a Fish Trap for about twenty casts, as did I, but still nothing. At least the swell here wasn’t crashing over the rocks like we could see was happening about a mile to the north, at the very point of Dana and out at the closeby San Juan Rocks.

*****

After two weeks had passed, I again visited Colorado Lagoon in Long Beach before work Saturday to rake up another bucket load of enteromorpha. Luckily, there was twice as much lying around as last time, which might have filled possibly three buckets. Good thing the algae’s coming back now. In a two months it will be prime opaleye season.

Sitting in the office, I had a couple options. I could call Breakwall Darryl to see if he wanted to join me at Opaleye Point, or I could call Dan and give Dana another shot. I kind of had my mind set on fishing where I have the most confidence. This is why I tried to get a hold of Darryl for two days (hi Dan) until he answered and gave me two thumbs up for P. V.

This morning I thought I could leave home at four-forty-five and still make it to the Opaleye Point trailhead by six, but the ninety-one freeway, even at that time of morning, was pretty tight heading westbound through Corona, finally letting loose near Yorba Linda. Next time I’ll know to allow an hour-and-a-half.

At this time of year it didn’t matter I was fifteen minutes late because as we walked down the trail to position ourselves on the Marineland ledge, we still had plenty of dark sky left to fish for bass. I tossed a five-inch blacksmith perch pattern fish trap into one of the few openings in the kelp to start my day. In the early part of last year when El Niño was in town, the warm water it brought ridded our fishing holes of most of the kelp that had been prevalent in years past. Now that La Niña as taken her brother’s place, chilly seas have lead to a renewed bloom of the seaweed in a big way. This winter from the ledge or even from Opaleye Point's platform rock this coming spring, it will be difficult to cast more than ten feet without snagging leaves.

Even though, on my umpteenth cast I caught a calico bass of eleven inches, which was promptly yanked out of the kelp strands before being unhooked and returned to the water.

A few casts later my line somehow broke, sending my unmanaged lure far out into the void, rendering the line on my Ambassadeur's spool to resemble a nest only Big Bird’s old lady could appreciate. That spelled the end of that outfit for the day.

At seven-fifteen the sky was light enough to start opaleye fishing with my enteromorpha opaleye bobber rig. Darryl was standing about mid-ledge, with myself positioned about ten feet away from him towards the outside. The whole time I was lure-flingin’, he was bobber fishing with the green bait. As I twisted a fresh wad around my hook, he mentioned he had several hits.

Next thing you know he’s yelling, "Hook-up," and reeling in a fat one. The toad opaleye looked to be about as girthy as lengthy. It eyeballed in at just under two pounds. Minutes later I heard him holler those magic words again, only this time his catch was even bigger, weighing in at two-and-a-half pounds.

I thought, alright now. After a prolonged drought I’m finally going to fill my freezer with taco cartridges and maybe have a bale of fillets left over to make jerky.

Not to be. After Darryldog caught those two nice ones, the bite slowed down in the next hour to a few non-hooked little-guy nibbles before completely halting at eight o’clock.

With him giving me his catch as usual, my calculations determined that so far it cost me $4.41 per pound of filets in gas to drive here.

Next, we hiked back up the trail and drove over to Marineland to fish Long Point. We started casting to the left of the point, where both of us had several hits so ferocious our bobbers completely disappeared below the surface. Darryl didn’t hook any of his but I managed to land three opaleye out of about fifteen bites, the largest going three tacos.

I’ve seen that kind of action here so many times I think I’ll refer to it from now on as Long Point syndrome. Lots of fish around in a biting mood but few hook-ups. Today our combined ratio seemed to be twenty-to-one.

Around ten Darryl had to split for work but I stayed and tried to the right of the point for a while. Again the same old syndrome ratio prevailed. I had about twenty hits with only one hook-up. I was happy though, as that last opaleye weighed in at two pounds.

With six fish in the bucket the drive home wasn’t as much to my chagrin as it could have been. With the four fish I harvested, my cost basis for filets lowered to a buck-fifty.

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