Watching the newspaper daily dock totals the last two weeks of November, I saw San Pedro boats were reporting significant catches of opaleye.  A quick stop at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit during errands Friday had me harvesting four scoops of enteromorpha for bait.

    A recent change of status has rescheduled my o-fish-ial fishing day as Saturday.  I dream of wetting a line weekly, at the beach during favorable tides, or at a lake or stream somewhere in our tri-county area.  That would be Riverside, San Bernardino or San Diego.  Much anticipated is the opening of Diamond Valley Reservoir (a.k.a. Domenigoni).  Southern DFG branch lead biologist Phil has for the past three years made the ecology of this lake his life’s mission.  Building underwater structure before the lake filled, the largemouth bass he hand selected now have nice new homes where they can safely spawn large families.  One perhaps forward-looking report had it that the bass are populous and are already averaging three pounds.  Will open for shore fishing this coming spring.

    This past Saturday I was at the bottom of the Opaleye Point trail at 06:00 for high tide.  I fished with the enteromorpha opaleye bobber rig for an hour, chumming regularly, but only one nibble was detected by the red-painted floatation device skittering atop a one-foot swell.

    On the walk over to the Marineland Ledge I ascertained a detriment to there being a herd of opaleye around.  The water was Lake Tahoe clear.  That goes right along with the recent Sea Surface Temperature Chart, which showed warmer water from the northern Channel Islands south.  It’s been my experience the opaleye hang out when the water is cold and green, not warm and clear.

    This week's chart denotes the California Current has infused our area with cooler water.

    At the M. Ledge I perched at a historically productive spot, about half way out.  I had maybe one bobber-wiggle but for the most part there wasn’t much action.  Then came Breakwall Darryl.  He crawled his way up and over a pile of newly deposited cliff-fall, put is pack down, grabbed a strand of green bait and tossed out.  Sometimes both of us catch’em, sometimes only one or the other of us catches’em, that’s why I had him meet me down here.  Today at this location neither of us hooked up.  Just a lot of little guys nibbling the bait off the hook.

    In there somewhere when I put some chum in the water near where we were standing I saw a nice three-taco opaleye come up and snag some.  I thought for sure there’d be more around to fill our bags, but skunk.

    Since it’s an hour-and-a-half drive for me to get here I wasn’t about to give up this early.  The two of us went back up the trail and drove around the corner to Marineland to fish Long Point.  My favorite fish-holding spot, just to the left of the point, looked primed, with a smooth and mellow two-foot swell washing in and out.  I injected an amount of chum into a backwash and…

    HOOK-UP, Darryl was on.  HOOK-UP I was on.  We met at the staging rock to admire our first three-taco opaleye of the season when another angler moseyed on by.  I inquired wuzup then handed him a wad of bait.  Unlike us he was fishing with a half-ounce weight on the bottom with a dropper loop hook on a small leader tied a foot above.  Didn’t matter.  HOOK-UP all three of us were simultaneously reeling in the night’s banquet main course.

    Right in the middle of action four scuba divers decided to exit the water right were we were fishing.  I asked Breakwall Homie, do they not see us?  That pretty much shut down the bite.  I hopped over to the right side of the point thinking the fish swam over there to get away from the foreign invaders.  At least one did.  Our sixth opaleye was being stuck in the gunnysack.

    After a while I didn’t have any more hits so I went back to the left side.  The size of the opaleye diminished as we caught mostly sub- or one-taco fish.  I caught one more three-taco to make our combined total seven.  I also caught a two-pound zebraperch.  I tried to eat one of those before and didn’t like the taste, so I handed it over to Homie who was over there saying gimme.  He already had six nice fat opaleye and a buttermouth perch he caught earlier to take home.

    We didn’t start fishing Long Point until 9:30.  The gate opens at 8:00, so in a couple weeks for the next high tide I’ll probably fish here then.

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