Opaleye Point 1/23
I've seen reports from sportfishing landings near Ventura and Santa Barbara the past month or so that opaleye have shown in the counts. Listening to the Ronnie Kovach Fishing University radio show on KLAA AM 830 last Saturday from 5 'till 7am, the skipper of one of the boats called in saying they really don't target opaleye just because they are around; they must keep all their customers happy by mixing up the bag. They are more or less a by-catch while using squid strips for other species.
I zoomed in the overhead map to scout the area from Oxnard to Goleta for rocks to fish from which might be surrounded by lush opaleye habitat. With mostly sandy beach up in that area I found no such structures available to warrant the expenditure of the time and dough required to drive up there. Those guys are fishing from 90-footers around the Channel Islands anyway.
Also, a pair of So. Cal bait shops reported this week opaleye were coming from Malibu near Las Flores and also the Seal Beach Pier. A scan of those two locales with the same map piqued none of my interest.
Therefore, off to my usual haunt on the south shore of Palos Verdes I went, to see if any opaleye showed up there yet. Yesterday's rains didn't bother the algae bait at Colorado Lagoon in Long Beach where I raked in a half-scoop.
Just before six o'clock I was down the Opaleye Point trail and to the right across the cove, where the water at Marineland Ledge looked perfect for opaleye; not too rough, not too calm, with nice light green color during the 5.6 high tide at 07:05. While two hands full of chum soaked I flung the five-inch Berkeley Jerk Shad in and out of the kelp stringers. Nothing touched that.
After a half hour I switched over to the opaleye bobber stick and stood there looking stupid until 08:30 when I noticed the bobber finally going down... slightly. These fish were so small they couldn't even shred the bait off the hook like a one- or two-pounder would.
Even though I knew it would do me no good, at ten I tried a couple other likely spots on the way back to the truck but I had not one bite.
Dock totals have been reporting many sand bass per angler lately, I'll probably try for those next week.
*****
Chuck writes in he baked his Lake Wolford trout from last week using a wild garlic recipe he found online, tasted great.
I cooked the one he kindly donated to me by filleting, removing the scales, picking out the rib and lateral bones, laying skin side down on a greased pan, smothering it with Bertoli marinara sauce, topping with cheese and baking at 475 for 25 minutes. I ate the whole thing.
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