Palos Verdes 11/4
For today’s six-and-a-half-foot high tide at 9am the swell chart is predicting two-foot waves, the perfect size for trying out the new trails Terranea put in leading to Long Point. The dilemma is The Breakwall Crew produced good number of opaleye there two years ago before construction of the resort closed that stretch of coastline but it’s too difficult to fish when the seas are rolling in three feet and higher.
At the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach there was ample fresh green algae to gather a full scoop. If you want to know where this place is, enter
Near the fishing grounds I parked on the street next to the apartments on the south-east side of the resort property and used the Vanderlip Link Trail that hooks up to the other trail which descends past the swimming pool to Long Point. I kept expecting some security type to try to kick me out. I was thinking they probably wouldn’t want any of them evil, wild animal slaying fisherpersons on display in front of all their frou-frou guests. At 5am I saw not one person milling about the resort; I had the whole place to myself. This joint is too expensive to stay at anyway, especially in such the economic times we today live.
First thing I did was hop out to the pillar rock at Long Point for the flinging of the five-inch WildEye Sardine. The air was filled with the aroma of the resort’s bakery cooking up fresh-from-scratch Danishes, ten casts into it I hooked something that pulled hard but came off. Upon inspection of the lure, many teeth imprints could be seen in the plastic just below the hook. Fan casting for the next twenty minutes produced no other bites.
I moved toward the north-west to fish the rocks from where two years ago I caught many opaleye. I resumed the lure casting until light but again had no bites. I chummed a few handfuls of green bait and tossed out the opaleye algae bobber rig set for five feet. In the first half hour with that set-up the bobber dunked several times but nothing stuck to the hook except a strand of kelp. I was surprised that in the next hour-and-a-half I only had three bites from little guys.
I moseyed on over to fish the usual hotspot to the left of Long Point, where every time I have used green bait I always got bit and landed fish. Another hour-and-a-half there produced nada.
I went back to the other rocks to the north-west, chummed the whole place and tossed out the bobber rig. I donated another hour but had no bites.
This spot has been closed for two years, so I’m pretty sure not many anglers have been here since, as evidenced by the trash lying around. It looked about that old. We have a small swell with an incoming tide, the sun was off the water thanks to a thick fog and still no opaleye were around to eat the bait. I thought for sure there would be a school after the reasonably good results from our trip two weeks ago at the ledge. I’ll try this spot again the first week of December pending calm waves.
*****
Six miles of Laguna coast could close to fishing