Last week I visited my favorite rocks near Crescent Bay in Laguna Beach, spending two hours flinging the five-inch Fish Trap before casting a chunk of mussel stuck to a treble hook suspended seven feet below a cast-a-bubble.  I knew it was not going to be a productive day when after an hour with the same chunk of bait I had not even grunion nibbling the meat off the hook.  I didn’t bother filing a report.

    So back to the opaleye hole near Long Point I went this morning.  The quality of the enteromorpha bait at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach was quite high.  When I arrived at 5:30 the tide was low, leaving only the gooiest, longest, brightest green strands in the water.  Perfect 10 bait today.

    At Long Point, the gate at the head of the old roadway leading down to the cove was open at 6:30, very nice of the landlords to do that.  Since the morning’s small high tide of 4.5 wasn’t going to peak until 9:34, I was able to easily hop out to the pillar rock for some Trap flingin’.  In the first 30 minutes I caught a calico bass of 11 7/16 inches (tossed) and two barred sand bass of 14 and 15 inches.  Not a bad start.

    Over at the opaleye hole, which I chummed when I first got there, the bite was slow at first, with only 1 3-taco opaleye landed before 9 while using the opaleye enteromorpha bobber rig on the 15-lb outfit.  Oh yeah, I respooled all three of my outfits with newly purchased Big Game after the heartbreaking line-snapping loss of two weeks ago. 

    Then all heaven broke loose; the big guys started to come around.  After a vigorous tussle (by opaleye standards) I netted the first toad over two pounds of the day.  By 10:00 I landed 3 more eyeballing in at 3 tacos, with three times that many coming off the hook, including two that felt way over two pounds.

    Having seven fish (21 tacos) in the bag, I went with a more sporting method of opaleye hooking; using a BB shot and a strand of algae just long enough to wrap around and hide a 1/0 Owner Flyliner hook on the 10 pound test get-up.  You dip the rig in the water to add weight, then airmail it out as far as possible, reeling in slowly to keep it out of the weeds and rocks.  That worked out really well.  By eleven I had way over 20 hits, landing another three opaleye, including the day’s largest at 2-11, as measured on my new ProGuide digital scale.  Again I had three hook-ups in there that pulled drag and held their own before becoming unbuttoned.

    After a five minute fight, I played an opaleye that appeared to be three pounds to the rock just in front of the boulder I was standing on.  I reached around with the net, lied on my belly to position myself to scoop it up but the day’s hugest wave came crashing in and busted it off for me.  Crapola.  ‘Twas a rouge wave, as today the swell was the calmest I have seen here in beaucoup years.

    After 11 the bite waned but I felt I probably could have stayed to catch more, however I had other stuff to do the rest of the day.  Looks like the opaleye are spawning at the moment, as the two biggest jacked milt all over me as I picked them up.  Also what I have noticed is that the bite is pretty good here a half hour before to a half hour after the high tide.  Final tally:  2 sand bass, eight opaleye.

*****

Concerning our report from 4/9 posted by Pier Rat Dompfa Ben:

...and we've all been beaten by her. She knows every stone, kelp strand, and archaic pier piling remnant from the cave to the pipe. I came close a while back--I turned her, and got her to swim towards me. Alas, I stepped on some loose boulders, and when I fell (injuring my knee in the process), that foot of line I gave up allowed her to get her head down around a rock, and it was all over.

 My day will come. Nice report. Just don't tell anyone about that spot :)

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