I was surprised that in spite of our recent heat wave there was still a lot of enteromorpha available at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach.  Probably won’t last long.  It was of fair quality, raking in as large muddy clumps.

   It’s still slim pickin’s for the sand bass out there, according to the recent daily dock totals.  My favorite Laguna low tide hotspots will have to wait a while. About the only thing(s) piquing my interest are the calico bass counts and a few opaleye caught from one or two boats per day.

    Two weeks ago we tried the area at the end of Hawthorne Blvd.  I only had one bite all day using Fish Traps and algae.  At six pounds the size of the thing made up for the lack of action.  This week I was itching to try 300 yards south of Opaleye Point where one day in 1998 I landed a legal halibut and a legal white seabass from a rock accessible only at a minus tide, like today’s -1.1 at 03:55.

    At 03:00 this morning I descended via rope down the cliff and made my merry way over.  I got a little too close to the intertidal zone and slipped on my ass after I stepped on a green rock.  I felt fine, not a scratch or bruise felt, but as I picked up my carcass and started walking again I felt water soaking through my shirt and pants.  Dang it, the mouthpiece valve fell off the end of my Camelback tube.  The thing pissed all over me.

    I took it off, set it down and went back to the crash site to see if I could find the blue plastic goodie with my headlight.  Right, this thing is the size of a dime amongst large rocks with crevices.  I told myself, dude you’re wasting precious darkness, get over to the rock.

    Climbing to the top of the boulder sans incident I managed to lose five Fish Traps in twenty minutes.  That was pretty quick.  It usually takes me all day to snag and break off that many.

    Nothing biting over here but rocks, let’s try the platform at Opaleye Point.  In the first 30 casts with the Trap, I reeled in about that many stray weed strands.  At 05:15 I finally hooked and pulled up a barely legal calico bass after a perfectly laid cast to the edge of the nearby kelp patch.  As I held it up to view, it wiggled off the hook and splashed back into the water.

    As light was upon me I switched over to the opaleye bobber enteromorpha rig.  I soaked the same bait here and there for a half hour before snagging and snapping off that rig.  As I hopped back to the staging rock to retie, the day’s hugest wave of maybe three feet crashed over the casting rock, flushing my bucket, net and gaff into the toilet gap between rocks.  For a while I didn’t see any of the three, finally the foam handle of the gaff popped up and I grabbed it.  I tried dipping the gaff where the net went it to see if I could hook that back into my possession but the effort was for naught.  I found my bucket wading in a pool close to shore.

    In the morning overcast light I could see the water was off-color, having that pukey green hue.  Visibility was only a foot or two.  I’m not sure if that has anything to do with the lack of bite as in the next hour I had no takers while soaking the algae.  I’ve caught a bunch of opaleye in this kind of water before.

    Bored to death, back up the trail I went to find new trails down bluffs near Lunada Bay and Rocky Point.  Around there I found footpath to a cove that was calm despite the four- to five-foot breakers all around the points.  There’s a nice kelp patch in the middle to which you can cast a lure from anywhere you stand on shore.  I might try that place in a couple weeks.  Again the water from Torrance Beach to Point Vicente was ugly green and I didn’t feel like walking down there to try.  I probably would have caught a big one if I did.

    When I got back to my truck I saw a gull bird had crapped all over the right side of the cab and window.  I just washed it last Thursday, too.  How prophetic was that to define my day today?

Here's the big calico I nailed last trip.

*****

Email out of the deep blue from Pier Rat Corbinaman.

got this one from the rocks in South Laguna on a split-shotted squid strip back in the summer of 2003...was 23.5 inches long! What is your biggest ever Calico from the rocks? Also incredible legal WSB's from the rocks...that is my next goal! Great website! Todd (aka...corbinaman1 on pierfishing.com)

Response from the editor:

My pal Breakwall Darryl likes using squid strips on 1/4 oz red leadheads.  Always does well for the calicos at the rocks or at Catalina. 

The biggest calico I ever caught was the 6-7 I caught at PV last September.  Hooked it right at my feet, a wave came up and landed it for me. 

My best day was back in 1998 when I caught 3 WSB, 1 calico, and 8 fat opaleye from my favorite rock between Marineland and Abalone Cove.  The largest WSB was 15 1/2 lbs, quite the battle.  I hooked all 3 before dawn.  When there was enough light I saw WSB backs rolling on top of the water.  Very nice sight. 

I thought I read a story in WON about some dude named Todd from Torrance who holds a few line class records for calicos.  The one he was showing in the paper was caught off South Laguna.  That wasn't you was it?

Response from Corbinaman:

Yep, that was me!  Something busted me off on 12# a few weeks prior(maybe a WSB?), so I scaled up to 20# test and finally got lucky for once on a split shotted squidstrip! That was my biggest Calico Bass ever and from the rocks off the beach (feel free to put this on your website)! My brother caught a 5 pound Opaleye at this spot about 20 years ago when we were little kids...finally broke his record! I haven't fished in some time, but your posts are motivating me to get back out there to get my first legal WSB from the rocks! Todd
 

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