Palos Verdes 5/15
Since that last opaleye trip three months ago, I attempted two more of the same in February and March but both times the Colorado Lagoon slime pit in Long Beach was completely devoid of algae bait. Will check again in October.
Meanwhile, the next fun thing to do along the shore of Palos Verdes is fish for bass during spring and summer early morning low tides, which allows access to normally unfishable rocks as long as the waves are under three feet. Today we had a tide of -0.1 at 06:33 and a check of the swell chart before I left the house showed perfect one-to-two-foot surf.
Two other items to check off your list when planning a calico bass trip is water temperature and sportfishing boats’ catch reports. The NOAA Sea Surface chart shows 18.5C or 65F, which is pretty good and the two landings on either side of Palos Verdes – Redondo and L.A. Harbor – their catch totals have had descent calico numbers reported recently. If you read these catch reports you will see many calicos released. A recent regulation change lowers the limit from 10 to 5 and this specie along with barred sand bass and spotted sand bass need to be 14 inches or longer instead of the previous 12.
Throughout the years what I have found the trick to be is, get there early. I always have caught the most and biggest at first light. Today I made my first casts from my secret rock I discovered 20 years ago at 05:15 just minutes after first light, which means I need to leave the house before 03:00 next time instead of 03:30, as it takes 20 minutes to walk there from the curbside parking, down the bluff trail, over boulders, through sand and pebbles and over more slime-covered jagged rocks.
From the casting platform, even after first light it is difficult to discern where the kelp strand obstacles lie. You just have to make casts, don’t let it sink to far, and get a feel where they are. The third cast of the WildEye 5-inch Mackerel swimbait using my 8-foot Californian Calico Special rod and Ambassadeur 7000C reel spooled with Trylene 20lb XT at first felt like I hit the weeds but then it wiggled the pole and I cranked hard. I could tell it wasn’t huge but it did feel legal and sure enough, into my net was a calico bass of 14 inches. I inserted the three-taco specimen into my gunnysack and soaked it in a nearby tide pool for safe keeping and freshness.
As more light was upon the water I moved up and down the rock casting as far out as I could to all the weed free areas remembering the whole time the biggest calicos I have caught here throughout the years always hit within five feet of where I am standing. The 15th cast I made was 30 feet to the right so that the retrieve would be parallel to the rock and in the aforementioned zone the whole way. Well, that worked, because, HOOKUP! It felt as if it were stuck in the kelp but no, it was just plain ol’ big, peeling line off the spool and everything. After a 5-minute tussle I scooped it up with the net and oh goodie it looked like four pounds. Mission accomplished! I removed the still lively 14-incher from the sack and exchanged that for the big calico.
In the next half hour, I flung the swimbait all over the place. The rock accommodates 70 feet of castable area and I discerned several hits before I hooked up again. This one felt like another legal calico but when I scooped it up, turned out to be a two-pound white seabass. The regulations stipulate this specie must be 28 inches before you can keep one and this guy was only around 18 and released.
I kept on casting until 07:30 and had a few more hits but nothing big enough to stick to the hook. The usual historic pattern persisted. Catch the most at largest bass at first light and then after 07:00, nothing.
I just happened to notice right where I was fishing a
tide pool
full of my precious blue-eyed babies. I dipped my GoPro for a
video of them frolicking. They are so adorable.
The organizing committee held the weigh-in ceremony at this time and on the Quarrow scale the big calico pulled down an even five pounds. I was impressed.
The rest of the morning I walked back to the trail tossing from every rock that had a castable clear space between the weeds but had no other bites until 09:00. This panorama shows how kelp-choked the main cove is. The points, like where I was fishing, were not this bad thanks to wave action against the rocks.
Will try again in a couple weeks when we have a -1.3 tide at 06:43, depending on the swell.