This morning we have a six foot high tide at seven o’clock, perfect for fishing an outgoing tide for opaleye at Long Point.  At the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach, the intestinalis algae bait is still plentiful and of high quality.

    At six the Terranea lot was wide open with plenty of parking as long as you stayed away from the tractors and the steam shovel.  It looks like the demolition crew has finished tearing down all the buildings of the old Marineland and at the moment are in the process of removing any remaining tree stumps.  The most beautiful trees they didn’t cut down.  They’re in giant pots awaiting transplant.

    At my opaleye hot spot to the left of the pillar rock, conditions were perfect with glassy clear water and only an occasional two-foot wave.  I chummed a couple handfuls of bait and started flinging the five-inch Storm WildEye mackerel for bass from several rocks on either side of the point while I waited for enough light to use the bobber set-up.  With no bass on the chew I stood there for an hour holding my other pole, watching my bobber not go down.  I was thinking I need my pal Breakwall Dan over here.  He’d surely catch some really big ones today.  Oh well, he has a normal workweek schedule.

    It became glaringly obvious that I needed to quickly find myself another rock to look stupid while standing upon.  I packed up my crap and hopped toward uncharted jagged boulders to the northwest.  I’ll be darn, only fifty yards away I found the most perfect rock I have fished from in quite the while.  There is no dangerous jumping required.  From the outer edge a large swath of deep water is accessible.  On either side there was a lot of whitewater to cast to.  What is most special is you get all this at high tide!  Usually this sort of large casting platform is available only at low tide.

    The whitewater on either side was caused by four-foot sets rolling in.  The reason the water in front of the rock was so clear was that the rock stuck out far enough – about even with the pillar rock – that the waves rolled past me and broke on the shore.  The main reason I like casting into the tumult for opaleye is that back in the day when The Breakwall Crew went snorkel diving around here we would see hoards of opaleye hanging at the break line between the clear and the churned.

    I could tell this spot is going to hold a lot of calicos when the season starts in late spring.  As for now nothing touched my WildEye after 20 fan casts.

    I made up for that nothingness with my first cast of the opaleye algae bobber rig, as that resulted in a fatty three-taco opaleye hooked and netted from behind the whitewater to the right of the rock.  I fought a second opaleye moments later all the way to my feet.  I came unbuttoned as I reached for my net.

    At eight o’clock, about five miles to the south-east over the San Pedro Channel, I observed a lightning storm heading my way.  A half-hour later it started raining but with my rain suit already donned, I was unmolested and kept baiting and casting.  From the same spot to the right I nailed another three-taco opaleye to slide into the bag.  Both fish were a pound-and-a-half.

    I tried in earnest to catch more before the storm was overhead, then BOOM, CRACK, BANG lightning was all around me, a ferocious wind kicked up and two six foot waves rolled in, almost washing my ass off the rock.

    Time to get the hell out before I got the hell taken out.

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