Palos Verdes 1/11
A busy life I live, such that in five months I haven’t completed the
catch report from my 10-day Sierra backpack this past July.
It’s about half way done.
Biggest of the trip was a 1-8 brown trout that hit the five-inch rainbow
pattern Rapala J-13. If I landed
something gigantic, I would have let you know by now.
We had perfect opaleye bait and ocean conditions October 26, 2019.
I dragged my buddy Breakwall Shane to Christmas Tree cove but we
didn’t even have a bite in the four hours we gave it.
The water was off color and there was zero swell.
Water color is no big deal but a swell is needed to keep the opaleye
back in the cove. Otherwise they
can hang around the outer rocks and feed all day at their leisure.
We saw a skin diver launch, carrying a large spear gun.
An hour later he hauled out with a 25-lb sheephead.
I knew it weighed that much because I hung it on my scale.
I asked him if he saw any opaleye
around. He said there were
thousands out there, just not where we were casting, as suspected.
After
fishing, Shane and I toured the peninsula looking for outer rocks to fish
during low swell days. Flat Rock
Point looks ideal and is outside the MLPA.
Next one-foot swell and high tide we’re there.
And here it is January already.
The swell all week leading up to today was 6 – 10 feet but a quick
check of
the swell chart this morning showed three, perfect for the back of
the aforementioned cove. Any higher
and it will be too difficult to fish.
Also, there is a king tide of seven feet at 08:55. That ought to stir
things up enough.
I was at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit by five and as always, a week
or two after a substantial rain, the ulva intestinalis algae was in full
bloom and gooey fresh. I rated
it at a 10.
I was at the spot before first light.
With my 20-pound conventional outfit I cast a five-inch mackerel
WildEye swimbait for bass but there was too much kelp around to be
effective. It was too dark to
see if there were any wide enough openings within casual walking distance.
I waited until 6:35 before it was light enough to see my opaleye
bobber. It was slow going for
the first hour then at 7:30 I landed a three taco.
That was a pretty good start.
I chummed some more bait then proceeded to land three that were one
taco each. I kept them handy to
toss back in case I landed more big ones.
The bite only lasted another hour, in which time
I landed a two taco
and one more three taco. From
8:30 until 9:45 I didn’t see another bobber wiggle.
video