Palos Verdes 1/29
Opaleye season starts in fall and continues through winter. What you need is rain to induce the growth of algae bait, high tide around eight in the morning and two-foot surf.
This past October Southern California had measurable precipitation and a stopover two weeks later at Colorado Lagoon in Long Beach provided a bucket load of the perfect fresh gooey long strands of ulva intestinalis algae as predicted right on schedule. That day October 16 we had a five-foot tide at eight at Palos Verdes but there were no opaleye. I cast and waited for three and a half hours but only detected one bite from a little guy.
Then the next few high tide weekends the surf was over six feet making any fishing attempt impossible.
Finally at the end of November we had a six-foot tide at 8:40 with minimal swell but all the hot weather that month already took its toll on the algae. The mats were all burned white and dead when I stopped by to check.
More rain came at the end of December. Two weeks later we had a six-foot tide at seven but on the way to the slime pit to pick up bait I heard on the radio a volcano blew up in the south pacific and there was a tsunami warning timed to hit So Cal exactly at the prime morning fishing hour. When this was broadcast, I was only about two miles from the bait stop. Before turning around for home, I checked and sure enough, two weeks after the December rain, the algae once again grew back and was of high quality.
And now for today. A check of conditions before I left the house showed two-foot swells during a high tide of six-and-a-half feet at 6:30. Over at the slime pit at 05:00 the early tide made accumulating a bucket load of green bait tricky. I needed to install my rubber boots and wade out two feet deep to rake in the readily available long luxurious strands.
Down the bluff trail to Christmas Tree Cove, it felt exhilarating to return to my favorite fishing grounds after a three-month hiatus. I set up camp at six and chummed three handfuls of bait but it was too dark to fish until twenty minutes later when I could finally see my dayglow yellow bobber floating out there.
A few more periodic wads of chum tossed out, I had my first hookup at 07:10, a nice two-and-a-half pound opaleye slid into the gunnysack. Fifteen minutes later I hooked another two pounder and safely stashed that one with the other. All this activity indicated the start of a hot bite.
That was not realized. I fished until nine thirty as the tide quickly ebbed but only saw my bobber wiggle five times likely from more little guys.