I picked up Breakwall Shane this morning at 4 before stopping by the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach for enteromorpha algae opaleye bait.  Warm weather the past week killed off a lot of the new growth – turning it a mustard yellow – but there remained enough good quality long green strands to render a full scoop.

    According to the Swell Chart, the area of the Palos Verdes Peninsula at the end of Hawthorne Blvd. would be too washed out by prevailing northwest four-foot waves to fish effectively, so instead we hit up the south-facing relatively calm rocky shoreline of Opaleye Point.  Using a rope at the top of the bluff, down the trail and to the right we aimed, making our first casts of the WildEye anchovy (me) and sardine (him) from the Marineland Ledge at 05:50.

    In the predawn darkness it was difficult to discern where the many kelp stringers floated.  I was extremely difficult not to snag a few.

    It wasn’t until after 7am before I landed the first calico bass, a dandy three-taco specimen.  Another half hour of both lures flying out amongst the submarine forest produced no bites, which means out come the opaleye bobber algae rigs.

    The whole time a lightning cell over south Orange County was heading our way, a show which entertained all.  We tossed out mid-ledge to a spot that historically produces the most opaleye.  It seemed like thirty minutes of bobber watching sped by before mine disappeared.  A pull of the rod and HOOK UP, Shaned netted a fair three-taco opaleye to be slid into the gunnysack.

    Rather slow today, it took another half hour to make Shane’s float go down.  It was well worth the wait, though.  What I saw in the net after dipping it was one of the biggest, fattest toad opaleye I have seen in a while, quite the feat for one’s lifetime first of the specie.  I was hooting, “Woo hoo, that’s huge,” etcetera, all the while thinking, “What a bastard,” I take him to my honey hole and he catches a bigger one than me just like last time when he caught a 13-inch calico as opposed to my 12-incher.  I just got through demonstrating how to sharpen his hook with my Leatherman file, which will be the last time I do that.  Not the monster hanger I used to be, at least my guiding skills shone brightly.

    As the morning’s 6.2 storm-induced tide came rolling in we scooted over a few rocks to fish a safer area farther inside the cove.  Another thirty minutes of bobber gazing hypnotically passed before I hooked up once again.  I brought the fish to the rocks, Shane went for the net but the opaleye came unbuttoned before he could hoop it.  Dang.

    Our cute little thunderstorm hung a left and scooted through the San Pedro Channel westward to open sea.  All of a sudden the wind switched direction from northerly to easterly complete with storm-generated waves pounding at our feet.  With the main swell coming from the north mixing with the freak surge from the south-east, all of our normally calm coves were now washed out.  No bites were had for an hour and we didn’t feel like dealing with the conditions, so back up the trail we went.

    Before dumping the three fish into the ice box I weighed Shane’s trophy opaleye.  Whoa, three pounds four ounces!  I haven’t even seen one that big since ’98, let alone caught one.

    We poked around here and there on the way to a small cove just south of Lunada Bay with a trail I have never descended.  Peering down the bluff a bunch of times before I always noticed the water was dead calm during the most intense wave storms.  Today was no different, we swung around to the right to fish the first bit of white water rushing in.

    I chummed a few handfuls of algae before casting out.  It was relatively difficult to fish with the one-foot swell taking the slack line in front of the bobber into the shallow four-foot deep rocks.  A whole hour went by with neither of us having any bites before my bobber went down.  It was a rather disappointing two taco opaleye kept nonetheless.

Top