The other day, just for funzies, I entered the word opaleye into the HotBot search engine.  What I found was a posting to an obscure BBS, talking about how the writer used ghost shrimp to catch a pair of opaleye over four pounds and a double‑digit sheepshead from the rocks near Crescent Bay in Laguna Beach. 

    Sunday I brought my maps with me on my scouting mission.  From the 133, I turned right on P. C. H., then left on Cliff Drive.  Without too much more tortuousness I found ample curbside free parking and a sign signifying North Crescent Bay next to a staircase leading down to the beach.

    As I trudged through the sand towards the rocks to the right, my gaze was so fixedly upon one bikini girl that I almost tripped over another barely-clad temptress laying there.  Better than those sights, after a somewhat challenging scamper up and over the side of a cliff, were several tide pools containing opaleye from one to four inches in length.  The rocks were covered with vast mats of very large mussel, the bottom was rocky all the way to a pair of large outer rocks, and there were even more nice looking and easily accessible rocks on the other end of the beach to try if spot number one were to fail to produce.  I though I was going to have to spend the better part of a day in my search, but here I was, in bass and opaleye hog heaven right from the get-go.

*****

    Monday I hit the beach at four in the morning.  With flashlight in mouth, I made it over the scary part to start with the blacksmith perch pattern five-inch Fish Trap outfit.  Fan casting from several points along the edge of the rocks, I found out the hard way it wasn’t too deep around here.  In an hour I snagged and broke off two of the lures.  By five forty-five, without any discernable hits, I gave up the jig flinging for the opaleye bobber enteromorpha set-up.

    I gave it an honest two hours of fishing various spots along a three-hundred-yard stretch of some of the world’s best opaleye habitat, but I did not notice any bites.  I even put on a chunk of mussel and floated that out there for twenty minutes.  Nothing.  I knew my green bait was tasting good after I tossed a small wad into a tide pool and saw several baby opaleye come up to feed on it.

    Under the duress of dismayment, I packed up and hoofed it over to the rocks on the south end of the beach.  Once there, I saw these rocks more resembled what I read in the BBS posting than where I was earlier.  Before me were two deep water-filled chasms, plenty of large mussel and tide pools bearing baby opaleye.

    Also what caught my attention was how much better it looked for bass and halibut.  The water was much deeper with a sandy bottom to the right and rocky to the left.  Since daylight was already upon me, I only gave the Fish Trap twenty hitless minutes before switching over to green bait.

    I dropped my wad ten feet down into one of the chasms, where I actually noticed some nibbles.  From the way the bobber ever so slightly wiggled, I could tell the fish were teensy.

    Next I set the depth for twelve feet and tried out behind the white water of a three-foot swell.  Again, plenty of chum and casts to several great looking spots produced nothing.

*****

    Tuesday, to get over it, I revisited my trusty Opaleye Point off Palos Verdes.  I was a little late getting there, so by the time I made it out to the platform rock at low tide, it was already too light for the Fish Trap to be effective.  I gave it a shot anyway, noticing a bite from a little guy after about fifteen minutes.  From the teeth pattern it left on the fresh plastic I could tell it was a calico bass.

    After the sun arose over the hill, I could see in the clear water the hopeful sign of lots of opaleye hanging around the rock.  In the first thirty minutes I caught three nice three-taco opaleye, the largest going two ounces shy of two pounds and a zebraperch of two‑and‑a‑half pounds.  That was about it.  I saw them hanging out but they just weren’t in a biting mood.

    Next I hiked a hundred yards south to try the wade rock, so called because even during a 0.0 low tide you will still get your ankles wet while accessing it.  From there, while I made a few tosses with the Fish Trap, I could see opaleye frolicking all around the area.  But when I picked up the green bait rod I had no hits in the hour I gave it.

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