Palos Verdes 12/22
In anticipation of the upcoming seven-foot high tide this morning at eight, all week the Southern California Bight was pounded by ten-foot surf. Gradually starting Thursday wave heights dwindled to four feet as seen on the Swell Chart then finally Saturday morning when I awoke, down to three. Perfect!
What also was perfect? The opaleye algae bait growing at Colorado Lagoon in Long Beach. A whole scoop of long gooey strands were harvested thanks to rain two weeks ago. There’s something about a winter’s storm that really gets it growing strong.
At six as I hiked down the bluff to my favorite rock at the back of Christmas Tree Cove, I noticed someone beat me to it. First time I ever saw anyone fishing this hundred-foot stretch of rocks. Now I have a second favorite rock about fifty feet away. The way the boulders tumbled out of the bluff face eons ago made access somewhat difficult but I found the perfect platform rock situated just above the high tide mark with a handy flat shelf rock right behind it where I could turn around and easily access my bait bucket as if tailor made.
I chummed four handfuls of algae into the rocks and as that washed out to the foam line I set up all my gear and adjusted the chunk of rubber band looped to the line so that the depth of the hook will settle a little over seven feet below the bobber. I cast out but couldn’t see the fluorescent red floater in the burgeoning dawn until fifteen minutes later at six thirty.
The bobber was going down but it appeared to be bait stealing little guys. Each time I turned around to spin more algae to the hook I checked in on claim jumper dude. He was catching opaleye of the three to five inch variety and keeping them. It’s legal; there’s no size limit for the specie as long as you only retain ten. In the aggregate that many four-inchers wouldn’t even net you two tacos. Seems like a lot of work cleaning them for such little payout. He must have been using a small hook. I use a 2/0 Owner Gorilla Light hook. That way you avoid reeling in the babies, as only one taco or larger opaleye can suck that large of a rig into their mouth.
At 06:45 I had my first hook-up and reeled in a disappointingly small one pounder. I held it up and while admiring, it wiggled off the hook only to be escorted by the next wave out through the rocks to grow larger for next year when I again will hook it. This does not portend well. I should be hooking big fat ones at this hour, then throughout the rest of the morning they should get smaller and smaller. It’s a bad sign catching little guys right now.
Ten minutes later all that was out the door, as I nailed a good one. This time I lifted it out with the net and safely brought it up to the shelf rock. Claim Jumper hopped over to check it out and by the look on his face, he didn’t realize opaleye get this big… two and a quarter pounds? That’s crazy talk! He pointed to my pile of algae and mumbled something undecipherable. I replied, yup that’s what I caught it on. You know where to get some? I was going to give directions to my main slime pit but with a different look of bewilderment he proclaimed, “no ing glees”. Oh. Got it. With my best attempt at American Sign Language, I motioned for him to take some bait and off he went with a big smile. It wasn’t five minutes later he reeled in his own two-taco opaleye. I gave him a woo hoo and a thumbs up; a deed for the karma bank… I hope.
By seven, different cliques of anglers and spear fishermen totalling fifteen descended the trail with most heading to try rocks to the left. The spear guys went right and launched out with a surfboard to help carry back to shore all them big fish they will stick. The sixteenth dude parked right between Claim Jumper and me, which was fine as there is plenty of room. For years I worked what I refer to as fisherman’s schedule. I had either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday off and always had the whole Palos Verdes shoreline to myself. Now that I have this Monday through Friday schmuck job I am resigned to fishing right next to all the rest of my Saturday schmucky buddies.
The swell and tide were perfect but fishing the rest of the morning until 10 was rather slow. I had plenty of bites but from little guys like I saw Claim Jumper and Pal both keeping. I saw Pal battle something that turned out to be a zebraperch of two pounds. Nice fight but they don’t taste as good as opaleye.
I finished the day keeping four but the other three weren’t as big as that first one I bagged, though it ended up being enough of an accumulation for eight tacos to be served the upcoming week. The mediocre haul was signified by those little guys biting at the start of the morning.
Next try Saturday January 5.
Field Test
After two trips I got rid of that Seaguar Red Label 15-lb fluorocarbon line I used as an experiment and replaced it with 17-lb Trilene XL Armor Coated. The Breakwall Crew has been using XL forever – since we were teens. XL means extra limp and it has the smoothest cast of all fishing lines with no coil memory. This is the first I have ever seen an XL product labeled Armor Coated, which for my application is a clue. The 17-lb line is three pounds over what I normally would use but still it casts very smoothly, no coil memory and the best part is, when it touched a rock there were no nicks, abrasions nor breakage. Thank you Berkley for the perfect new line for fishing from rocks!!!
Condensed
video of the action.