white seabass
White seabass
California bluewater hunters prize the elusive and tasty white seabass more than any other local gamefish. Seeming to appear from nowhere, these fish require a skillful approach. The key to hunting them is learning just how close you can get before they bolt, disappearing in a blur.
The California Fish and Game Department limit is three fish daily except for the period March 15 through June 15, when the limit is one. White seabass populations had been on the decline, but there is now good news for white seabass fishermen.
A freediver may spend years stalking through kelp forests before encountering his first white seabass, perhaps glimpsing a tail vanishing into the edge of visibility. This fish is spooky! With their keen sight and hearing, white seabass can often sense a diver and scoot before ever appearing in the hunter’ s visual range. Huge schools of white seabass used to proliferate off the coast of Southern California and Northern Baja California. Spotter planes reported seeing acres of kelp forest turned whitish yellow due to the high fish concentrations there.
Two important initiatives are helping to bring white seabass back into our waters. Proposition 132, which passed in 1990 and became law in 1993, has prohibited the very destructive practice of gillnetting white seabass in near-shore waters. White seabass schools, which travel at
night, were easy prey as they swam into these deadly nets. In addition, the Hubbs-Seaworld Research Institute, aided by the United Anglers of Southern California, recreational dive clubs and angling clubs, manages a program for the propagation and distribution of juvenile white seabass. Small fry are spawned and reared at Hubbs’ labs in San Diego. When they are large enough to transport, the small fish are taken to volunteer-manned grow out pens set up in Southern California harbors. At the lab, a small, needle-sized identification wire is introduced under the skin overlying their gills, which allows scientists to track these fish as they grow and are eventually caught. A special scanner reads the fish’ s data from the identification wire. Thanks to these two programs, freedivers are seeing increased numbers of white seabass off our coast.
Juvenile white seabass live behind the surf-line in drift algae. Older fish( over four inches) occupy bays and shallow coastal waters. From there they mature in deeper coastal waters, usually not more than 350 feet deep. Some fish reach five feet in length and live for 20 years. A 28-inch fish( the legal length for possession) is about five years old. Spending the winter months hunting squid in deeper water, spawning fish move into the kelp beds between March and October. The peak months are May, June and July.
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