THEY’RE BACK!

    Oh opaleye my beloved, how I have missed thee so!  Thou hast left me lovelorn for so long I cannot delve deep enough into my cavernous heart to excavate the last instance thy beautiful blue eyes met mine.  Was it my matrimony to my suburban abode which caused thou jealousness and avoiDance of me these past uncountable years?

    Reality check: Nah, it was likely the warmer‑than‑normal sea temperatures since 1999 skewing the numbers.  After an influx of cool ocean waters along the So. Cal. Coast (61 degrees) brought to you by a storm from the frigid north last weekend, my opaleye are back. At least that’s what my non-scientific observances have concluded over the years: cooler water = masses of opaleye.

    Every once in a while, followers of the Daily Sportfishing Dock Totals  will notice once or twice per year the incidental take of opaleye from maybe one landing fishing either the Channel Islands or near‑shore rocky mainland haunts using squid strips while targeting calico bass.  This past Thursday I noticed an amazing thing, as just about every operator from Oxnard to Dana had double digit opaleye tallies listed in their counts.  Fisherpersons, in over twenty years of following said registries, I have never EVER seen more than one of these guys in a single day report they caught nigricans.

    Well, it just so happened Breakwall Darryl called two weeks ago to have me pick a high tide Sunday in which we would launch his boat, the SS Chaparral, for opaleye fishing off the Palos Verdes coast.  Then, while still on the phone, I looked at the Internet Tide Charts calendar and picked today as our best bet as the flow would be 5.6 feet at 07:20.  At that time I had no inclination our quarry would miraculously appear in such a grand influx into our local waters, but subconsciously it’s obvious I’m a regular Carnac the Piscatorially Magnificent.

    After hangin’ with Mustang Steve and the crew at his major‑rager housewarming party Saturday night in Pedro, I motored the short distance to Darryl’s house in Wilmas at 23:00 to crash in his guest room.  In giddy anticipation, I tell you, 04:00 this morning could not come soon enough.  By 05:10 we launched out of Cabrillo Beach and were under power around Angel’s Gate aiming for the Point Vicente Lighthouse over a windless and mild two-foot swell.

    A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum as the on-board fish finder wildly beeped a metering of a large school of somethings hanging just above the bottom in 130 feet off Abalone Cove.  Captain Darryl reared back on the throttle to circle around in an attempt to re-register the readings, then instructed me to drop my pre-tied Fish Trap rig to the ocean floor.  Neither of us were properly prepared to immediately fish at such depths, as it took forever for the one-half ounce leadhead to get down there and we had none heavier in supply.  After a half-hour of bouncing the jig up and down here and there I cranked it up for our final destination, the big rock 100 yards off Vicente, three miles away.

    We idled toward the rock looking for bent kelp strands to determine in which direction the current flowed.  It was immediately obvious there really wasn’t much water movement, so we guessed we should anchor to the left.  Ideally one should fasten the boat so that the stern is pointing in the direction to which one wants to cast.  With no gush, the boat was tethering aimlessly all about the place before we tried two more times to re-anchor.  It seemed hopeless we would attain the ultimate position, so we said screw it, let’s fish, as sunrise was already upon us.

    Ninety-nine percent of the time when the two of us get together I, Carnac, pick the time and place and Big Darryl catches the first fish, and in this instance, fishes.  I, The Great One, had the first bite as I saw my twelve-pound enteromorpha bobber rig go under with no hook set.  Darryl’s similarly rigged outfit too went under but he didn’t react soon enough as he pulled his pinky out of his nose.  All he could say for himself was, Dang I was over here spacin’ while my bobber went down.  I said, yeah, it’s been so long you forgot what it looks like.  That statement got him goin’, as he proceeded to stick in the cooler not two or three but four big fat piss juicy two-pound opaleye for the taco pan before I netted one of a lesser but keeper size.

    The action the next fifteen minutes slowed somewhat before I had a huge bite on the green bait.  It yanked my chain with much vigor as I gingerly tried to pull whatever it was up to color.  A strong pull of the line by the presumed four-pound opaleye and limp, gone.  Screaming several &$%* words, I cried the mourning of such a loss out of my system, then re-baited for another cast.  Damn.

    In the next half-hour, between us we caught four more two-taco sized opaleye before a pair of bastard jetskiers showed up to try their amateur skills at jumping our opaleye rock as the waves washed over.  The usual scenario, they have the whole ocean to knock themselves out but they feel the need to get in our space to ruin our day.

    All that noise sorta-kinda chased the fish away, so we pulled up anchor to try some boilers a mile to the north.  As per usual, at the first stop I flung the Fish Trap for seven casts.around the rock to see if any bass were lying in wait.  With no takers, we both tossed out our green bait rigs. In twenty minutes and nothing to show on those set-ups, we tried another boiler a half mile further north.

    There, we had better action as we both combined to fill out our day’s final take of fourteen opaleye weighing between one‑and‑a‑half and two‑and-a‑quarter pounds.  Needless to say, at this point I was feeling very much happy.

    For the next hour or so we hit some rocks from Vicente to Abalone Cove.  The kelp was so thick in the area it was kind of tough to fit the transom within, without getting the strands tangled around the rudder.  In this timeframe Big Darryl landed a blue perch and two short calicos using squid strips pinned to a small leadhead, all tossed back.  I caught nothing using Fish Traps and green bait, so we motored on towards the south.

    As we approached Portuguese Bend we saw just about every half-day boat from Redondo to Long Beach anchored over the spot where we metered the deep school earlier in the morning.  There had to be twelve of them.  Just for funzies we idled in gear between the sportfishers, trying to determine what they were catching.  As far as we could tell whatever bite they showed up for was over and nothing was scrolling on the fish finder screen.  At 11:30 they were all pulling anchor and heading back to port, about the normal hour they would return.

    The two of us pointed our craft to the platform rocks off Portuguese Point.  There, I started with the Fish Trap and Darryl with the leadhead/squid strip.  I had no takers on the plastic, with Darryl losing three of his rigs to the rocks.  I tossed out my green bait rig and within five minutes my bobber went down.  I set the hook, which enraged the fish to pull drag from my 1961 Mitchell 302 spinning reel.  That task is not easily accomplished, as all you Mitchell fans can attest.  This thing felt real big, making me realize in my mind that I had just hooked the biggest opaleye in my life.  I was in such a silent state of shock as I tamed this behemoth, Darryl didn’t realize I was on.  With the narcotic of adrenaline rushing to my brain, all I could mutter was a passive, dude, look.  He heard the buzz of the reel’s drag, finally seeing I hooked something of incomparable quality.  In the relatively clear water the fish came to color and into the net, not a state record opaleye, but a four pound ten ounce calico bass.  Oh my.  I was shaking so much I could barely disgorge the hook out if its lips.  My earlier wails of disappointment suddenly turned into whoops of glee as I held up my trophy for a photo shoot.

    I’ve caught calicos on enteromorpha before, but not a one this huge.  Darryl was confounded, saying he didn’t know how to comment about that.  Maybe the fish wanted a little salad snacker, he offered.

    Portuguese Point looked like a great spot to hang for a while, with its many clear water crannies, but in this business looks are deceiving.  No bites were noticed while using all of the aforementioned set‑ups described in this story.

    At noon, we had two more exploratory projects in mind.  Number one was to find a shallow rock about a quarter-mile off Point Fermin, near the omnipresent black buoy, which Darryl has been trying to locate for about two years.  With an ice box filled with fish, which basically equates to fat and happy bloated stomachs, we took our time zigzagging the area, all the while studying the screen of the depth finder.  I know it’s around here somewhere, exclaimed Captain Darryl, as he killed the engine so we could drift into a kelp patch.

    A cast here and there with bait and plastics, the depth finder sounded the shallow water alarm.  The captain announced we are in fifteen feet of water.  There it was below us, the top of the rock, with three garibaldi keeping sentinel.  Darryl quickly added the spot to the GPS unit for future reference, then we scooted up‑current to anchor.  We chummed a few wads of algae to get the opaleye going before flinging out our rigs.  In an hour, Darryl managed four calico bass under the twelve‑inch size limit using squid and myself had no bites on green bait.

    On the way back to the launch ramp, we stopped by Angel’s Gate, where one of Darryl’s scuba buddies always sees clouds of opaleye hanging out.  Fish Trap at the point, green bait near the rocks, an hour goes by, no bites, we’re out of there.

Notes:

    At home, when I cut open the big ass bass, its stomach was completely hard packed stuffed with a six inch kelpfish.  How it thought it could fit any more food in its gut was beyond me.  Perhaps Darryl was right, it just wanted a little salad to go with its meal.  Also, the next morning I checked the catch totals for the individual sport boats we saw off Potuguese Bend.  They all reported moderate catches of sand bass and halibut.  Next time I will be ready with some sort of heavy sinker and hook to drop a squid down there before the commercial guys show up.  If anybody wants to fish for opaleye from the rocks I will gladly be your guide on high tide Saturday and Sundays only, until March, when the Breakwall crew will focus on early morning low tides.

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