With springtime upon us, it’s time to break out the squid lights, crowders and energy drinks for those overnight assaults to the local islands in search of white seabass.
It seems like clockwork; out of thin air the seabass bite will turn on. It’s usually kept quiet for a day or two, but before too long it’s the hot topic on the local Websites, radio chatter and across the cell phone airwaves, as seabass fever hits Southern California.
During peak season, there may be 40 to100 boats soaking baits in a concentrated area awaiting the show. Then, just as you’re about to pull anchor and move, you see a neighboring boat hookup. These hookups become contagious and travel like a wave until it’s your turn. Long hours spent paying your dues all become worthwhile when you feel the telltale thump as a seabass inhales your bait. Yes, this is what we all wait for. Seabass season.
Waves of white seabass seem to infiltrate local waters undetected in the early spring months. Where they emerge from is a mystery that still puzzles veteran seabass fishermen and managers alike. But the spring showing of seabass is no coincidence; their internal clock indicates that it is time to reproduce as water temperatures and photoperiods increase throughout the region.
Their appearance also coincides with the spring upwelling period, which stimulates the productivity necessary to support baitfish within this rich feeding ground. This period overlaps with the inshore squid runs that typically set up in 15 to 20 fathoms to spawn. Squid are a favored prey item for seabass, especially when spent individuals can easily be slurped up from their spawning grounds. Since white seabass are accustomed to feeding on spawned-out squid, fresh-dead baits are often just as effective as live squirters.
Fishing squid-tipped irons, leadheads, or dropper-loop rigs on the squid grounds, as well as soaking baits in shallows along the beaches, can both be effective ways to target seabass. With temperatures in excess of 60 degrees Fahrenheit stimulating the white seabass to chew, the majority of catches occurs as water temperatures increase from April to August. The intrigue of seabass fishing is enough to get many boats out of the harbor for their initial spring shakedown run, which can pay off for those with good timing or persistence. Last year was another banner seabass season with many sport and spear fishermen still talking about the abundance of larger-model fish from 40 to 93 pounds.
But, as many of you probably remember, Southern California seabass fishing has not always been something that you could count on. From the 1970s through the 1990s, only the most seasoned and fortunate anglers were able to rightfully claim to have caught one of these rare trophies. Because fish were scarce throughout California, seabass fishing techniques were unfamiliar to the generation of anglers that developed their skills during the long period of suppressed white seabass populations.
White seabass (WSB) landings have fluctuated considerably over the past century, with the commercial take ranging from a high of 3.4 million pounds in 1959 to a low of 58,000 pounds in 1997. Annual California landings exceeded two million pounds in the periods from1919 to 1922 and again from 1958 to1959, and a sharp decline in WSB landings followed both instances, suggesting that sustainable harvest levels were exceeded on these occasions. These declines have been attributed mainly to over-fishing; however, habitat degradation, oceanic conditions, and natural oscillations in the spawning biomass and larval recruitment may have also played a role. Commercial history does, however, give us a clear indication that this resource can be over-fished and that conservation, research, and adaptive management are all essential for maintenance of a healthy fishery.
The recent resurgence of the fishery has allowed a whole new generation of anglers to appreciate the thrill of catching their first seabass and to learn the techniques and locations that consistently produce. Places like Rocky Point, La Jolla and the offshore Islands (Santa Catalina, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa) all provide anglers with ideal locations to target seabass, since these productive habitats attract large spawning aggregations from March through July. During this period, most spawning occurs in the two hours
following sunset and in water temperatures from 59 to 64 degrees Fahren-heit. Although most fishermen target seabass around the full and new moons to take advantage of the larger tide swings, spawning occurs through- out the moon’s cycle. Fishing improves during the spawning season as seabass feed aggressively to replenish spent energy stores following reproduction.
The formation of spawning aggregations makes WSB especially difficult to manage because, on one hand, it’s the opportune time to target and catch one, but on the other, it’s a time when these fish are especially vulnerable to over-exploitation. It has been well-documented that the intensive harvest of spawning aggregations typically leads to rapid population declines. This reproductive strategy made sea-bass especially vulnerable to the former inshore gill-net fishery, which had the potential to harvest entire aggregations in a single set. Intensive catches of nearshore spawning stocks continued until the coastal gill-net fishery was restricted from fishing inside of three miles from the California coastline in 1994.
Following the reduction of gillnet pressure on spawning stocks, recreational catches have increased, due to both an apparent rebuilding of the population and a three-fold increase in fishing effort. Since the early 1990s, a comparison of the recreational and commercial landings shows that, in most years, the recreational take exceeds that of the commercial. This may be hard to believe considering that anglers are limited to one fish per day between March 15th and June 15th, and that the recreational landing estimates do not even incorporate the Southern California private access fleet (i.e., marina based yachts). Although management restrictions are in place to protect seabass spawning aggregations, increasing effort from a fleet that is more educated than ever can really add up!
Since we, the Southern California anglers, have truly benefited from the resurgence of white seabass, it seems practical that we take the initiative to ensure that our fishery remains healthy. How? One way to ease the pressure on spawning stocks would be to maintain a one-fish recreational bag limit throughout the entire spawning season. An-other idea might be to stop fishing after your limit has been reached, as the practice of catch-and-release leads to additional mortality. It is also imperative that we focus our research efforts at answering some of the unknowns that are associated with this species, since management is extremely difficult when it is based on limited information.
The white seabass fishery management plan acknowledges that essential fisheries information is lacking on WSB movement patterns. Their summertime disappearing act from local waters is just as mysterious as their arrival, and little is known about movements in the winter, particularly between October and February. Do the spawning aggregations simply disperse throughout the coastal waters, or do fish retire to deeper water to track the squid biomass? Or, possibly, do fish migrate seasonally to the south, and do we share a bi-national stock with Mexico?
These are important questions that we hope to address through a tagging study that will be initiated this spring by the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research (PIER) and the Catalina Sea-bass Fund. The objective of this project is to better comprehend the movement patterns, catch-ability, and temperature preferences of this economically important species.
In this study, data-logging tags (archival tags) will be surgically implanted into the peritoneal cavity of over 100 wild-caught adult white seabass. The study will focus on areas of high fishing pressure (i.e., Santa Catalina Island), as the tags must be recovered to obtain the stored data. Electronic tags continuously record depth and temperature data when attached to a fish, like an intelligent parasite that tracks the fishes every movement. Recaptured individuals will provide information on seasonal depth distribution and temperature preferences. This work will also add another dimension to ongoing PIER research efforts to acoustically localize white seabass spawning aggregations.
Information gained from this study will assist biologists and managers in evaluating WSB fine-scale movements, but the success of this project is dependent upon angler involvement through the return of recaptured tags. Therefore, we are requesting your assistance on this project by being on the lookout for tagged fish. Tagged seabass will be readily identifiable with a yellow dart tag near the dorsal fin in addition to a white stalk protruding from the abdominal wall of the fish. This stalk is attached to an internal archival tag, which, upon recovery, will bring a reward of $200 and a tagging project
T-shirt. Reward and contact information will be labeled on all tags, and additional information on this and other ongoing research is available at www.pier.org. We are really looking forward to another productive season of seabass fishing and appreciate your participation in this research and in the conservation of our marine resources.
Stay tuned for upcoming reports on the progress and preliminary results of this project that will give us some insight on the movement patterns of these elusive ghosts.
PIER is a non-profit 501(c)3 research in-stitute dedicated to research and the sustainable management of the marine environment. Special thanks are offered to Mr. Thomas Pfleger and the George T. Pfleger Foundation, Paxson Offield and the Cata-lina Seabass Fund and the San Diego Fish and Wildlife Advisory Commis-sion for making this project possible.
