This morning at 5:30 I was at Colorado Lagoon in Long Beach harvesting a half-scoop of algae bait to take to Opaleye Point for the 8:15 0.7 low tide.  It looks as if the green has grown back since the last time I visited – when there was none at all after a rain – but most of it now was brown and dead.  I could locate only one ten-foot mat that was still green but of poor quality, just stringy enough to be barely usable.

    The past few times I’ve fished this side of Palos Verdes at my usually fertile high tide spots I only had a few nibbles but no hook-ups.  Spring brings us low tides in the morning; the rocks at Opaleye Point are now exposed and accessible and at times can be very productive.

    Once out to the platform rock I chummed a few handfuls of bait, then in the dark flung the five-inch WildEye Sardine out to various kelp stringers.  There was even enough space between the weeds to make some long casts to the outside.  In the 45 minutes before sunrise I had five pretty good strikes but they must have been calico bass too puny to suck up the whole lure, hook included.

    In daylight I could see the water was off-color, which I unofficially call the harbor current due to the pukey-green ocean looking like what you’d find inside nearby L.A. Harbor.  In the years I’ve fished this spot I have found we catch more opaleye in this color water than when it is Lake Tahoe clear.

    Fan casting the green bait far out and close in, to the left and to the right, it wasn’t until 7:30 before I noticed some bobber-wiggling.  Ten or more dolphins crowding the kelp could have had an effect on the bite, as opaleye are rather skittish.

    Two hours and four measly bites later I finally had something take the bobber under.  The only thing that felt better than finally hooking something this year was the fight it put up.  It peeled off 15-pound line heading to kelp on the left, right and straight out.  I brought it up to color, it was an opaleye alright but not looking as huge as it felt.  As it tried to swim underneath the rock I was standing on I quickly dipped the rod tip to keep the line away from any sharp edges.  As it tired I dipped the net and success!  A fat four-taco specimen staring up at me from the platform rock and weighing in at 3 pounds 5 ounces, the largest for the crew since Breakwall Shane’s three pounder back in ’05.

    I chummed some more to keep whatever presumed school showed up around longer.  Bullwinkle, that trick didn’t work as in the next 90 minutes to eleven o’clock I had not one other bite.

    On the way out I saw a backhoe working the bluff over to the south, something I never would have expected.   My guess is Palos Verdes Bay Club is constructing a new stairway down to the water.

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