I picked up Breakwall Shane this morning at four o’clock for yet another high tide opaleye adventure to the Marineland Ledge, located along the south shore of Palos Verdes.  On the way, the ulva intestinalis to be used as bait was plentiful at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach.  Regular readers might wonder why we are going to fish with ulva this morning instead of the usual enteromorpha algae.  Turns out scientists recently reclassified the longs strands to the same family of algae as ulva after a DNA test revealed the two are closely related.

    With a three-quarter scoop of quality intestinals (new pet name), we rappelled down the Opaleye Point trail, then marched across the pebbly cove to the ledge.  Usually we try for opaleye at the spot at the bottom of the trail to the right of the point but due to poor results here the past few times we shined that to hit up the ledge, where Shane landed a toad over three pounds two months ago.

    At our destination, we made the obligatory attempt for bass with plastic swimbaits by casting between kelp strands, I with the Storm WildEye Live Anchovy and he with the Live Sardine.  Pre-dawn made it difficult to know exactly where to place the lures, as many a kelp hook-up was had with at least two lures lost.  As sunrise approached with no bass action detected we quickly gave that up for our intestinal opaleye bobber rigs.  The last time I was here I tried for bass too long into the morning and let the opaleye bite pass me up.

    Not this time.  As soon at there was light enough to see my red and his orange fluorescent bubbles we had bites.  Problem was the opaleye were biting light this morning.  In the two hours after six thirty I had seven hook-ups with only three 24-ounce specimens safely landed.  The other four I had up to the net but even though I babied them in, the hook tore through the lip tissue with only the slightest of tugs.  One of the escapees felt way bigger, like at least three pounds.

    I felt back to normal.  Whenever I fish with someone I always catch the most and biggest.  Three trips in a row with my current fish buddy had him dethrone me.  Not today.  He didn’t catch anything, not even a hook-up.  Special thanks to the helpful person I relegated as Shane the Net Guy for scooping up all my fish for me, standing on a near shore rock in water up to his knees, braving the occasional swell surge.

    Around eight thirty, with nothing paying any attention to our bait and lures, we hiked ’n’ drove over to the Terranea parking lot to fish Long Point.  Normally we fish the rip current to the left of the point, but today thanks to a tide ebbing rapidly we made the easy hop out to the pillar rock.  Making a glance over to Point Vicente we saw twelve-foot breakers crashing in but here and at our first stop the biggest swells were around four feet.

    First thing was to throw some chum into the usual rip current to the right of the rock, then fan cast the swimbaits out to various kelp strands and paddies.  I gave it 20 casts before switching over to the opaleye bubble trick.  On the bait we had a few hits but it wasn’t until an hour-and-a-half later before I had a solid hook-up of an opaleye weighing in at barely over a pound.

    From eleven until quitting time a half hour later I had several bobbers go down but never had another hook-up.  I new they were fish because most of the bait I put on the hook was gone and I was fishing only six feet deep to avoid the rocky bottom.

Top