My last two local shoreline salt trips were so incredibly humdrum there was really nothing so urgent to write about that I had to fit typing a story somewhere between my normal 12-hour shift and extra days of training.  So on my first relaxing Sunday morning in a while, here I go:

     Local dock totals of late are showing improved calico bass catches along with reports of several opaleye for two San Pedro boats.  The past two weeks Breakwall Darryl has been slaying the bass from his boat at Angels Gate while tossing Berkeley Jerk Shad Mullets under anchovy bait balls next to the rocks of the Federal Breakwall.  He wanted me to join along one day two weeks ago but our work schedules didn’t match.

    Last week I hit up my favorite calico rock near the end of Hawthorne Blvd. in Palos Verdes.  The tide was lackluster but the swell was only one foot, which has always seemed to be the hot ticket for that spot.  A quick stop at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long beach found only small patches of green bait for opaleye intertwined up into the saltbush at the high tide mark.  It was of a light green low quality but without spending another ninety minutes poking around other mud banks in Orange County, it would have to do.

    Down the trail and to the right, I was casting the five-inch WildEye Mackerel from my rock a half-hour before dawn, which in July is four-thirty.  It’s always good to cast in the dark so that your lure will be in the water at first light, an hour I have noticed the past four years to hold the best bite for monsters.

    Not today.  This six-foot WildMan Fisherperson had no hits until six-thirty when I alas landed a nice calico weighing slightly under two pounds after tying on a five-inch Berkely Powerbait Silver Mullet (different than Darryl’s hot bait).  In the next hour, more casts of the lure from other rocks were unproductive.  Time to toss out the opaleye rig.

    BORING!  The green bait was crappy, chumming that and crushed mussel attracted nothing.

     Today I hit up the usual south end of Crescent Bay in Laguna Beach and had a somewhat more successful trip.  Sitting here for a month waiting for the sand bass to show up was killing me, so even though the sandie dock totals are lackluster right now, I headed out nonetheless.

    Since the calicos are generally smaller here than at P.V., I fish with a smaller swimbait, the WildEye five-inch sardine.  La tee da, the morning started like the same old song, starting the cast business at four-thirty and not receiving a hit until first light.  BAM!  I was on to something nice, a two-and-a-quarter-pound calico bounced atop my feet.  It took another half-hour but success came again in the form of a fifteen-inch calico sliding into the gunnysack.  Both fish came from the same ol’ rock where I always catch a calico, near the north point of Santa Ana Cove.

    Moving north back towards Crescent, I tossed out from all the usual spots.  Nothing was doing until I reached the big rock at the south end of the bay, where I used a Gulp four-inch chartreuse Swimming Mullet on a 3/8 standup leadhead under a cast-a-bubble.  The deal with the bubble is you fill it three-quarter with water, it sits atop the leadhead, you are able to cast way the hell out there, the leadhead/mullet sinks, you reel in slowly along the sandy bottom and hope for the best.

    The best never came.  Even though this leadhead rig worked great for sand bass from Darryl’s boat last year, I only caught three baby calicos as the bait came close to the rock.

    Enough of that, I crimped on a small spit shot, tied on a number six treble hook and pined on a wad of mussel.  Same results, three baby calicos.  I had a bunch of other nibbles but I could see in the clear water they were garibaldi having a snack.

*****

From Jim L.:

He caught these from the Owens River above Pleasant Valley Dam 7/7/07.  Very lucky if not skillful:

Some other weird fish he submitted.  Doubtful Jim caught it:

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