opaleyecalico bassMike Dufish's The Breakwall Angler, starring opaleye and calico bass
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Catch Reports 2022

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Palos Verdes 12/24

    Since opaleye fishing this season has been a bust despite prime conditions, I tried to convince myself I ought to start a couple projects around the house I’d been considering.  Wait!  We have a king tide of seven feet at nine Saturday morning.  I can’t miss out on that!

    Special thanks to the assist from a soaking rainstorm ten days ago, once again the algal bait was perfect at the Colorado Lagoon slime pit.  This, plus a two- to three-foot swell rolling in, the scenario at the back of Christmas Tree Cove at Palos Verdes should be opaleye perfect.

    I arrived at the ideal flat fishing rock just above the high tide mark ten minutes after six, chummed three chunks of bait and waited fifteen minutes for enough light to see my yellow bobber.  Even the largest of the swells rolling in were very mild, causing no splash in the zone where I was standing.

    I noticed something slightly different than past trips since October when I detected little guys picking bait off the hook by the way the bobber just wiggled but never submerged.  Today the bobber was going down quite regularly but no hookups, meaning these were medium-sized guys.  Finally around seven thirty I hooked up and I could tell it was only a pound but it came off the hook before I was able to land it.

    Next fish about 30 minutes later I actually landed and sure enough it was a puny two taco photographed then released.

    Up until now, the bobber was going down every cast but it wasn’t until right at high tide at nine o’clock that I landed a keeper opaleye of three tacos which was slid into the gunnysack.  I hung out until ten thirty but only saw the float be pulled under without another hook-set that whole time.

    Local news media were coving – or should I say sensationalizing – this weekend’s king tide event.  No matter which channel I looked at or at what time, they all said stay away from the beach because there will be seven-foot waves crashing in at high tide!  They get it wrong every time.  It is not 7-foot waves gol darn it, it’s 7-foot tide!  Sheesh.  Here is a  Opaleye Fishing at King Tide video I shot right at high tide depicting the largest of the swell all day.