’Twas another typical PV trip this morning: a quick stop at the Colorado Lagoon slime pint in Long Beach for fresh strands of intestinalis at 04:00 and the first casts of the Storm five-inch WildEye mackerel at the end of Hawthorne Blvd. at 5.

    On the drive over I heard on the news the earth is moving into the tail of Haley’s Comet today, which will cause more meteorites than usual.  Because of Santa Ana conditions prevailing this week there was no marine stratus layer to obscure the show of constant shooting stars in the southwest sky near the star Canopus.  Wonderful to gaze at but where’s the fish?

    The water was as calm and glassy as I have ever seen it here at my famous big bass rock.  Normally I’d have a four pound and a couple 14-inch calicos by six o’clock under these conditions.  Not today.  It wasn’t until 6:30 before the only bass of the day struck the lure, a dandy fifteen inch calico bass deposited in the gunnysack.

    I gave it another hour but with more bites from bass nonexistent while using the mackerel and three-inch Gulp! squid, up the trail and over to the Long Point opaleye hole I went.

    There, I chummed a few handfuls of bait then cast the mackerel around both sides of the pillar rock twenty times before switching over to the opaleye intestinalis bobber rig.  I thought to myself, whoopee!, as the first cast resulted in an immediate float yanking, which resulted in no hookup.  Another wad of chum was tossed in and BAM!  Hook-up, my first opaleye of the season (generally Oct. – Mar.), a fat toad weighing in at 1 ½ pounds.  Nice.

    Unlike two weeks ago when I fished here and had not bite one, today the bobber went down quite a few times.  I wish I knew what could cause such a turnaround.  Last time I made green bait at Newport Dunes.  It was an old growth batch and had a darker color than the Colorado Lagoon variety but it’s pretty much the same.  Today’s bait was of fresh-new growth with a bright lime green color.  That’s the only difference between then and now.

    For about thirty minutes the bite was good with lots of nibbles converting into two other landings of opaleye at one pound each.  After that, the next hour and a half was rather slow.  It took periodic handfuls of chum to keep the fish hanging close.  It wasn’t before another hour went by until I caught the fourth and final opaleye of the day, an extra one-pounder added to my collection.

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