Palos Verdes 8/26
Tried for calico bass at Palos Verdes this morning. Started casting from Five Pounder Rock 04:50 in the dark. You don't want to shine a light in the water to check for kelp because there is a chance you will spook the fish. I didn't need a light to determine there would be no casting opportunities from this rock because my five-inch WildEye Sardine wouldn't even sink there was so much kelp.
I moseyed on another 15 minutes south to Golden Cove, where I found one fifteen-foot opening from a rock where I netted 5 calicos earlier this year. I made 30 fan casts to all depths but had no hits.
As I headed back to Christmas Tree Cove at 06:15, I could see the whole coastline is shrouded by a great wall of kelp and will not be fishable for quite some time. We are supposed to have El Nino conditions coming up this fall and winter. During the 1998 El Nino the warmer water eliminated most of the kelp and fishing at PV was great all year. Let's hope!
I usually fish during morning low tides in the summer for bass. The swell today was one to two feet which wasn't bad but we had a 3.5 foot incoming tide at 08:00. This eliminated many rocks from fishing safely if there was no kelp around. I will stick with my normal plan next year.