Opaleye time... almost.  There was no enteromorpha at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach.  I think the weather needs to cool a bit before it will bloom once again.  As a backup I brought along a bag of frozen C&W petite peas I purchased with a coupon at the grocery store last week.

    On the Opaleye Point trail, at the section where you first descend the cliff just after hopping over the railing, the metamorphic rocks we have used as a sort of ladder all these years morphed again.  In the early morning darkness I viewed with my headlight the steps had collapsed and are now lying in the trail fifteen feet below.  With my bum knee I got on my belly and tried to get down but it was a too hairy looking of a trick to jump.  I really don’t need another malfunctioning leg at this time.

    On the way over to the Via Vicente trail head (end of Hawthorne Blvd.) I saw there is now a housing development where once there was the Marineland parking lot.  Dang those went up quickly.

    Down the old Chowigna Trail (that’s what I call it anyway) ye ole knee worked well enough to deliver me to a perfect rock about a quarter mile to the right.  Making several casts with the Fish Trap into a calm water incoming tide I had lots of hits but no hookups at first.  Then BAM a non-fighting something came right in, in the form of a thirteen inch calico bass.  I stuck him in a shallow tide pool and continued.

    Ten casts later something bigger got his face stuck on the Fishco lead head, as indicated by more fervent tugging.  Right on, a fat two-pound sandy bass now in the net was added to the pool with the calico.  Or so I thought.  A wave came up into the tide pool, looked like the calico escaped from prison.  I shined my light and poked around all the nooks and crannies but I didn’t see him.  Best to stick the sandy in the gunnysack and stash it further back from the waterline.  Oh cool, there’s the calico, washed up onto the rocks behind the tide pool.

    With those two guys stored properly at the staging area, I walked around casting here, there and everywhere, Underdog.  Actually I like this side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula better than Opaleye Point. Its at least one mile length of accessible shoreline harbors what I say are countless of the most perfect casting platform rocks surrounded by deep water you’ll find anywhere.  Problem is that this area faces west, which is from where the prevailing swell pounds in from the open Pacific.  You have to pick a calm day to make the place viable.  The Opaleye point side is generally calm except during a rare south-swell episode.  Even then Catalina will block most of it.

    Making long casts with a slow retrieve, something ate the Trap about ten feet from the rock.  As I cranked I could tell it was a white seabass just by the way it felt on the line.  Sure enough after a short semi-listless tussle I bounced it up onto the rock.  As this one was very close to the twenty-eight inch legal restriction, I reached for my tape measure.  Oh for... I had it clipped to my belt but now it’s gone.  Contemplating a moment I knew where it was, back at the Opaleye Point trail cliff, likely fell off while on belly.

    Next best thing is my Leatherman tool.  You unfold the pliers handle and it makes an eight-inch ruler calibrated in inches and centimeters.  I applied it to the outstretched fish, measuring one, two, three Leathermen and... come on!  Four more measly inches!  And...  Jury’s out.  Looks like four more but not so sure.

    So I stuck it in a large tide pool to keep it alive but I was late.  This croaker croaked already.  In case there were a few more seabass around I wasted no more time in flingin’ the trap.  I hit it hard for the next thirty minutes, casting like a wild man, moving around to cover at least 100 yards of shore.  Hell of a lot o’ effort for no bites.

    By this time the gulls had pulled the five pound ten ounce seabass out of the tide pool and poked its eyes out.  From here my strategy was to stick the two bass in the bucket and the seabass in the bag, storing the bag in a bush at the bluff bottom with some rocks on top for stealth.

    Now that the bass bite waned, time for opaleye with peas.  I used a #4 live bait hook today with my usual opaleye bobber rig, which allows you to hide the hook with less peas than when using the standard 1/0 unit.  I chummed more peas into the water and tossed out.  Something was picking the peas off the hook, but there was no indication of action from the bobber.  Probably a bunch of sardines the culprits, as I saw a lot of the three-inch minnows jumping around all morning.  In an hour I had three serious hits where the float submerged but nothing stuck to the hook.

    On the way back to the trail I passed a small stream of water created from the gutters of the bluff top neighborhood.  Examining closely, I saw algae growing there.  There wasn’t much and it wasn’t long enough to wrap around a hook but I took some and chummed the water where the stream entered.  I tossed the pea rig out there but nothing was going on.  I have a feeling this spot will produce big once the ocean cools and the opaleye season kicks in.

    On the way up the trail I had the seabass in the bag as the top layer in the bucket in case there would be a Fish and Game warden around checking on things.  I rationalized I could toss the whole wad into the bushes before he saw me.  Yeah right.  I popped my head above the bluff and seeing there was nobody around, I practically ran the fifty yards to the truck, threw everything in the back and tore out o’ there.

    I headed over to Opaleye Point to retrieve my tape measure, stopping by Marineland to check out all the pretty houses.  I’ll be Danged, it’s actually a huge movie set.  All the houses are just fronts for the new movie Dick and Jane.

    Sure enough my tape was lying right there where my belly once crawled.  Showing off my catch at the Busy Bee sandwich shop (roast pork today) I pulled the seabass out of the cooler, laid it out and sized it up officially.  Turns out I’m now a poacher since it measured out at only 27 inches.

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