I was thinking of hitting up Laguna for low tide this morning but the lackluster sand and calico bass counts along the coast from L.A. to San Diego distanced my mind from such an idea.  Instead, to take advantage of today’s relatively small two foot swell, I fished Palos Verdes near the end of Hawthorne Blvd. for opaleye and secondarily bass.

    At the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach most of the algae bait is dead.  A couple clumps of funky stuff are obtainable only at low tide.  It was short, crinkly and very lightweight but better than nothing.

    I pulled up to the parking lot right on time and made my first casts from my favorite calico bass rock at a quarter ’til six.  I could tell right away that flinging the five-inch Storm WildEye Mackerel was going to do me no good because last time I was here under such perfect conditions I had much action.  Today I felt nothing for an hour effort of casting to every nook and cranny visible.

    I chummed some green bait and switched over to the opaleye bobber algae rig.  Maybe fifteen minutes later I had a couple of bobbers going down without a hook set but very promising.  Another fifteen pass and WHAMMO I was on.  At first I thought it was a confused bass because it actually pulled drag from my Ambassadeur reel, something your basic opaleye usually doesn’t do.  I’ve caught lots of calicos on the green bait.  I figure they think it’s a green marabou jigging up and down.  Whatever it was took its time coming in; it held its water like the big boys.  It tried to swim for kelp strands and submerged rock grottos but I held tight and within five minutes using fifteen pound test I had what looked like a four-pound opaleye safely scooped out with my Cummings Square Handle Boat Net.  It looked huge but on the Normark scale the reading was only 3-3, good enough for 4 big tacos nonetheless.

    I gave it until nine o’clock, having in that time only three more bites, which concludes opaleye season until November.

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