Palos Verdes 5/12
As reported in January, this past opaleye season (Oct – Feb) was a somewhat of a bust due to varying conditions. The best time to go is when the swell is two feet and morning high tide peaks at eight. If you are someone like me who has only one day per week to goof off, those two conditions are just about impossible to time.
The good news is, during calico bass season (May – Sept) all you need is a morning low tide sometime between three and seven combined with a two-foot-or-less swell. Your one day off will have a perfect tide every other week.
I took advantage of such this morning. I awoke at 02:30, checked the swell chart, which showed one to two feet, ate and then drove to meet the -0.3-foot low tide that occurred at three. I pulled up to the blufftop curb above Palos Verdes’ Christmas Tree cove at 04:30 and after a 25 min hike to the rock where I consistently catch a five-pounder right at first light every year, I made my first cast with the Storm 5” WildEye Sardine just before 05:00. This means there was an incoming tide but still all the important rocks were exposed and very fishable.
First thing I noticed the swell was larger than the chart predicted. Some sets looked over three feet. I donned my rain suit and didn’t worry too much. Only problem was, the water around my secret five-pounder rock was too stirred up for any big ones to come in and safely hunt. I cast for fifteen minutes anyway and then headed south to the next big rocks.
At this spot I found better conditions where I was able to cast very far out and I didn’t notice as many kelp stringers in the way to snag on. I cast here and there, and then right in the middle I hooked up. The brute peeled line off the reel and went right into what felt like a hidden kelp patch. I kept pressure on and it eventually freed. It still felt like it was stuck in kelp but this was only because the fish was just plain ol’ big! After a five-minute battle I lifted it out with the net and indeed the calico appeared to be five pounds.
I slipped into the gunny sack, retied the lure and cast again. On the second cast I hooked another one that felt just as big. Even though I tightened the Ambassadeur 7000C’s drag, this behemoth also peeled off line and ended up in another kelp patch then disgorged. I reeled in an empty lure.
Before moving on to the next set of rocks to the south, I held the weigh-in ceremony for the one in the sack, which registered as four pounds, four ounces.
At the next rocks, which would be the right side of a large cove, the water again was choppier than desired but as long as I was making long casts and there were no surface kelp stringers in the way, conditions were fine. Until overexuberance got in the way. I just respooled with Trylene XL 20 last night and all casts were perfect with no backlashes until on one particularly strong cast I didn’t watch out behind me and snagged a rock which caused a day-ending irreversible birds nest that I didn’t feel like spending time remediating.