Laguna Beach 4/22
As spring brings us minus tides in the morning, it’s the time of year to fish the exposed rocks in and around north Laguna Beach. Our usual quarry is sand and calico bass and even though the counts from Dana and Newport for the two species are low but improving, I picked up Breakwall Dan this morning at 4:30 for a delightful day at Crescent Bay.
As we turned onto Cliff Drive from PCH, Breakwall Doug and son were behind us and by five we were all down the stairs and turning left on the beach.
Standing on the south side of Twin Points I mentioned to Doug, who has fished here a bunch of times, that I always catch a calico bass from that rock right over there. He retorted, you mean only in the summer. I proclaimed, always. I offered to my guests the first casts from the rock but they instead declined. Almost in unison they said they wanted to see Dufish catch the first fish. There’s pressure!
It took almost a half an hour and fifty casts but as soon as there was first light poking through the cloud cover BAM, something hit my five-inch Storm WildEye sardine. Dan was casting next to me, I said hook-up, I cranked in what felt like a little guy. When it came to color I saw that contrarily it was a two pounder.
When Dan turned around to look, his WildEye pulled a gymnastics maneuver around my line. With my calico bass signaling at our feet that he is now ready to be netted out of the water, Dan tried unsuccessfully to untangle his line from mine. Well, let’s go, he instructed; I bounced the fish and we walked back to the staging area in tandem.
Once there I bit off my lure and pulled my line free of his. I took two steps toward the base of the bluff, where our backpacks and gunnysacks were stashed, and I hear this loud *SNAP*. I blurted, what the hell was that? Looking at his spinning outfit lying on the rock Dan said, dude you broke my pole! Further inspection revealed that, no, I stepped on his line and somehow busted off his lure. It was probably time for a retie anyway.
By the way, we didn’t start out with the usual five-inch mackerel pattern WildEye because at Laguna normally the bass aren’t as big as one finds at Palos Verdes. With the smaller sardine you get more hits (we hope). Also notice the fish bit right at the very first light of the day, just like what happens at PV, where I make 100 casts to the same spot in the dark and the 101st at first light the fish hits.
Everybody retied and cast happily for the next half hour, when we concluded there were no more bass at this end of the point.
We walked over to mid point and the first thing I notice was a sulfuric rotten smell. Looking around I found large patches of brown algae covering the rocks. I never saw that here before. Dan and I cast lures while Doug and son dunked squid strips into chasms between boulders for surfperch, where he had a big bite that snapped off when he set the hook. Easy there, Mr. Lightliner.
With nothing much happening in the middle we marched on over to fish the big rock facing north into Crescent Bay. Doug used more squid on light line near the beach while Dan and I used Gulp three-inch squid and three-inch baby shrimp respectively in the new penny pattern. As I aimed toward the outer end of the rock I could hear Dan back there oohing and ahing as his bobber went down several times as fish bit. I was using a Carolina rig with a one-ounce egg sinker, casting way out, dragging it in slowly along the sandy bottom, reeling in slightly faster as the rig approached the rock to keep it from snagging. I felt a nice tap-tap with no hookup so I dropped it back in, reeled up the rock slowly, which produced a hit. Up came a 13-inch calico to be added to the bag.
After a while I switched over to a chunk of mussel on a #1 baitholder hook held down by a two-ounce torpedo sinker. I felt a few nibbles but they must have been dinky.
At 8:30 Doug and son bailed for other obligations while Dan and I trudged over the dreaded hump north to Sargo Point. At one spot along the beach was a peculiar rancid death stench emitted by huge middens of newly washed up mussel shells. Eleven days ago Laguna had surf of ten feet crashing in, which might be the explanation for such carnage. What's more, Two people died while fishing the Corona Del Mar jetty that day.
Sargo point traditionally has rougher water as it faces north, from where the prevailing swell originates. Into the tumult we tossed our WildEyes with no success so I switched over to using the mussel rig while Dan soaked the Gulp squid. We both had some bites but nothing much to write about. Instead we just sat on a rock relaxing, taking in the sights and refueling with snacks before the hike out.
*****
North San Diego County lagoons could play key role in steelhead recovery.