I wanted to fish for opaleye with enteromorpha at Dana Point Sunday morning, but after only two hours of sleep and a swell chart showing wave heights of eight feet, I felt it to be more rewarding that I go back to bed.

    This morning, feeling more refreshed and seeing that the waves were down to a mere four feet, I had no problem staying awake and driving to Palos Verdes to fish Opaleye Point and vicinity.

     It was an incoming tide to be high after nine o’clock, which meant the spot at the bottom of the Opaleye Point trail probably wasn’t going to be very good but I tried for a half‑hour anyway.  I was right.  It sucked.  If I’m going to catch anything here, to the right of the point, the bite will usually happen during an early‑morning high tide.

    Soon I found myself moving over to the ledge. There, I seeded a few handfuls of green‑bait chum into various spots along the rocks, then started casting to the close‑by kelp strands with a five‑inch Fish Trap for ten minutes before giving up the lure for the opaleye bobber rig.

    I started bait fishing as far out on the rocks as I could, making several casts here and there, some tosses near the rocks and some near the kelp, looking for the bobber to go down, or at least wiggle.  It wasn’t until I cast out from mid‑ledge before I saw some action; and I mean a lot of action.  I had ten to twenty bites in the next hour, but not a single one stuck to the 1/0 hook.  I could have tied on a smaller treble hook, but I new I would only land little guys if I did but I wasn’t interested in them.  I wanted big boys.

    I gave it a little longer, but the bite slowly dwindled to nothing.  It was an hour before high tide when I walked back over to Opaleye Point to retry my luck there.  I gave it twenty minutes to see a bite before I packed it up the hill and to the car and over to Long Point.  Just as I thought, again nothing.

    As I drove the freeway before light on my way over, I could see several flags sticking straight out, indicating a northern bluster.  Luckily, when this happens, since the shore where I fish is generally south‑facing, the bluff behind my back breaks the wind, rendering the water glassy, like it was today.  That is, until I stood near Long Point.  A stiff breeze blowing a fog patch around made it difficult to fish, as my line formed an arc that was attracted to the sharpest part of any of the hundreds of rocks around.  However, I did see lots of bites that, of course, didn’t stick to the hook.  In fact, I had hits for the first forty‑five minutes I was there, while casting into the foam near the left of the point.

    I kept looking over at the gap between shore and the often times productive pillar rock, but with the high tide and waves crashing in, crossing looked a little on the unsafe side for what I likely wouldn’t catch.

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