White Sea Bass

With bait tanks full of live squid, skipper Gary Norby on Wednesday took the L.A. Harbor Sportfishing's Outer Limits to test the waters off the backside of Santa Catalina Island, fished primarily during summer months. The results were surprising to his 12 passengers, who found themselves in the middle of a large school of white sea bass.

Never mind creationism versus Darwinism--here's the real source of the fishes in the sea. It's a floating dock in Newport Harbor, where volunteers from the Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation on Wednesday took charge of nearly 4,000 3-inch fish that they hope to nurture into marine adolescence, and then freedom in the open ocean. They do it just for the halibut. And the white sea bass.

As the wind whipped the ocean into a froth last Sunday, a few boats made the bumpy crossing to the back of Santa Catalina Island. "They stayed out there and stuck it out," said Dan Stanton, a spokesman for L.A. Harbor Sportfishing. "And they got 'em." What they got were white sea bass, one of the most popular game fish in Southern California and the hottest thing around when the fish choose to stay awhile. Fortunately for fleets from Newport Beach to Redondo Beach, they have so chosen.

The surfers who flocked to this city's beaches last Friday probably had no idea what the commotion at the lagoon across the highway was all about. The commuters riding the train through town could, at best, catch only a glimpse of what must have seemed nothing more than a big party. And few could have guessed that it was being held in honor of fish--white sea bass--and the people who for the last 13 years have been working to bring more of them into the world.

Line-slashing barracuda and white sea bass have spiced spring deep-sea fishing. The biggest concentration of barracuda is spread out from the oil rigs to Rocky Point. The white sea bass at Catalina Island have been showing signs of biting. They play hide and seek one day and then bust tackle the next. Most barracuda caught by anglers tossing jigs have averaged five pounds. The largest weighed 10 1/2 pounds and was caught by Long Beach angler Howard Bagley on Monday aboard the Southern Cal out of Long Beach Sportfishing.

The long-awaited spring run of white sea bass has started off Catalina Island. All South Bay sportfishing boats fishing near the island last weekend got into the action and some of the fish caught have been in the 40-pound class. All of the anglers were using squid for bait. Fishing aboard L.A. Harbor's First String, Russ Izor of Gardena used a 15-pound leader to catch a 40 1/2-pound sea bass, the whopper of the trip. Izor battled the fish for 25 minutes.

Squid again was the determining factor as Redondo Sportfishing boats filled their tanks and focused on white sea bass at Rocky Point. There is a big concentration of the bass at the point and daily catches have been averaging 10 fish per boat, according to the pier's office. Optimism runs high for an excellent fall run of big white sea bass. The limit at this time of year is three per angler, and they must measure at least 28 inches.

It's a wide-open scramble for white sea bass off Catalina Island as anglers continue to catch 30- to 50-pound lunkers. Frank Hall at 22nd Street Sportfishing in San Pedro recalls the early 1950s and '60s when the bass caught off of Catalina's west end weighed upwards of 70 pounds. Hall said some big fish were also caught during the years of the El Nino, but not the quality his boats have been returning with the past two weeks. Anglers are using squid for bait and 30-pound-test line.

Once again squid is the determining factor in the success of hooking that prized game fish, the white sea bass. The El Dorado from Long Beach Sportfishing put the lights on at Catalina Island and brought to the surface enough squid to fill the bait tanks. At daybreak 25 anglers tossed squid into the kelp and the result was a wide-open calico bass and barracuda bite. Capt. Dave Peters urged anglers to lower the bait toward the bottom to get past the calico bass. This method worked, as rods started to bend and tackle was breaking off with big white sea bass.

Huck Finn had his raft. Henry VIII barged down the Thames. And recently Jim Donlon, 78, was towed two m.p.h. around Channel Islands Harbor on a mobile fish-rearing pen. You will not find this unusual ride at the Ventura County Fair. August 10 was graduation day for more than 1,000 white sea bass that Donlon and fellow fishing enthusiasts raised for six months as part of a pilot program to replenish the species in Southern California waters.

As the wind whipped the ocean into a froth last Sunday, a few boats made the bumpy crossing to the back of Santa Catalina Island. "They stayed out there and stuck it out," said Dan Stanton, a spokesman for L.A. Harbor Sportfishing. "And they got 'em." What they got were white sea bass, one of the most popular game fish in Southern California and the hottest thing around when the fish choose to stay awhile. Fortunately for fleets from Newport Beach to Redondo Beach, they have so chosen.

Most of the news about ocean fish stocks these days is bad, but an experiment being carried out in Dana Point offers a glimmer of hope. Depleted fishing grounds are a national problem, with waters in the Pacific suffering from overfishing and offshore development, and an entire area off the East Coast suddenly closed. The Dana Point Fisheries Enhancement Program is the latest part of an experiment designed to replenish the ocean off Southern California.

About every five months or so from now on, a pickup truck is scheduled to pull up to the dock in front of the Harbor Patrol station at Dana Point Harbor. Attendants will open a large tank of seawater on the truck's back end. Then, using a wide hose, they will siphon the water into three underwater pens separated by fishnet. Swooshing down the long hose will be thousands of tiny baby white sea bass.

In reading the Dec. 26 article titled "Local Gill Netters Hope Court Will Rescue Industry," it appears that your reporter is extremely gullible, in addition to having an abysmal lack of knowledge about oceanography and fishing. He states that "although gill netting will be permitted outside the three-mile limit, most of the boats are too small to safely operate that far from shore during harsh weather." Has he ever seen a gill-netting boat? Most of these are no smaller than 40 feet in length and capable of handling most seas found in our offshore waters.

Last summer was a fruit lover's heaven and a fruit grower's hell. A huge harvest, a troublesome economy, marketing problems and transportation woes resulted in a year in which apricots, plums, peaches and nectarines were practically given away. That's not the case this year. After a slow start, summer's soft fruit is coming on, and by all indications the harvest will be back to normal--up to 10% smaller than last year.

Thousands of visitors swarmed to the waterfront Friday and were subjected to highly unusual treatment. They were dunked in huge tanks of water on trucks, hauled onto a ferry and shot out of a water hose. They loved it. These visitors were no ordinary beach-goers. They are 3,000 white sea bass that are part of an unusual project to help nature regain its balance--and fishermen boost their catch--in Newport Bay.

Huck Finn had his raft. Henry VIII barged down the Thames. And recently Jim Donlon, 78, was towed two m.p.h. around Channel Islands Harbor on a mobile fish-rearing pen. You will not find this unusual ride at the Ventura County Fair. August 10 was graduation day for more than 1,000 white sea bass that Donlon and fellow fishing enthusiasts raised for six months as part of a pilot program to replenish the species in Southern California waters.