Two weeks ago chatting with Breakwall Mickey, who has fished the Palos Verdes shoreline since before I ever held a rod, I was informed that even though the newly-opened bluff-top acreage at the end of Hawthorne Blvd. mentioned in our last report had been fenced off with barb wire and keep out signs all these years, lots of anglers snuck themselves into the property to fish the rocks below.  This fact was in evidence by a well-worn dusty trail leading to the best spots, which obviously has been in constant use since perhaps the Chowigna days.

    I pulled into the small lot at 5:30 this morning and even though the sign read no parking from dusk until dawn, the RPV cop who cruised slowly by to investigate my shenanigans paid little attention to me as I pulled out my poles from the back of Li’l Miracle.  In the darkness it was rather difficult to sense exactly when dawn might occur, considering the substantially thick blanket of fog shrouding the area.

    Setting up a staging area upon a high point, I was ready to start flinging the Fish Trap.  At low tide there were over three hundred yards of perfect casting rocks with none of the pesky kelp stringers to hang up on like there is around the corner at the Opaleye Point/Cave Rock casting platforms.  Looking northward there were yet more wonderful looking places to try maybe another day when the swells are down, as today.

    I spent an hour fan-casting every fifteen feet, working my way along rock’s edge in a southerly direction, finally landing a twelve-inch calico at the point where I ran out boulders to stand on.

    After letting the fish go, there was enough light to pick some of the four- or five-inch mussel before the incoming tide once again concealed their presence.  By the time I made it back to my gear, there were already seven anglers parked here and there with more descending the path.  I visited a few, who were using thirty-foot rods with bobbers and peas, obviously for opaleye.  That was a good sign, suggesting they likely had success here for that specie in the past.  I inquired with a couple of the anglers if they usually catch ‘eye at this spot but all I got in exchange were those silly-looking Chinese-guy grins you see from someone unfamiliar with Ingles.

    I kept my eyes on them as I chummed some of the enteromorpha bait I acquired at Colorado Lagoon on the way in.  I rigged my twelve-pound outfit with a bobber and cast out.  Chumming and casting for a little over an hour produced no hits.  That other dude using peas had identical results.  Nothing.

    A little later I saw the pair switch baits to something meaty I surmised was shrimp.  One of them caught a small surfperch and the other a foot-and-a-half long kelpfish.  Seeing that, I switched over to the old hunk of mussel anchored by a one-ounce torpedo sinker.  I had a few non-substantial nibbles before losing the rig to the jaggedly rocky bottom.  I re-rigged, went over to another rock closer to shore and tried again.  I had several bites but nothing was sticking to the number two baitholder hook, which meant little guys.  I tried for a while casting out the hunk of mussel seven feet under a bobber, which resulted in the float going under a bunch of times but still no hook-ups.

    Next I picked a spot where I could keep tabs on the prospective success of all around me.  I kept chumming the green bait and casting it out with the bobber rig.  Nobody including myself was catching anything.  I gave it until nine and though the tide was going to be five feet at ten, there still were lots of places to fish without getting soaked or worse, washed out.  However since this is the rough side of the peninsula, calm days likely will be hard to come by the next six months.

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