Santa Barbara Island White Seabass Breaks Wide Open

Don Ashley from Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach has been in the sportfishing business for over 50 years. So when he calls this weekend's white seabass fishing perhaps the best he has ever seen, it is saying something.

For the second day in a row, boats fishing Santa Barbara Island Sunday caught their one- fish limits of white seabass. “As soon as your bait got down to 10 to 12 feet, 18-35 pound white seabass would streak out and swallow it up,” said Irv Grisbeck from the Big Game 90. In the time it took Captain Mike Jewitt of the Big Game 90 to pull anchor, Grisbeck hooked and released four of the big croaker. 

From Long Beach, it is 46 miles to Santa Barbara Island. With a total area of about 640 acres (2.6 km²) it is the smallest of the eight Channel Islands of California. Besides being home to a large sea lion rookery and sea bird nesting colony, there can be tremendous sport fishing opportunities here, too. 

Captain Ray Lagmay of the Toronado out of Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach estimated that there were at least 16 boats from Newport Beach to Oxnard who had their limits of white seabass. “You can see free swimming seabass darting out from under the boat and biting just about anything in the water,” said Lagmay. He estimates hundreds of the mighty fish being taken on Sunday.

 What makes this even more remarkable is that the white seabass fishery was at an all-time low in the 1980’s. Gillnets and overfishing made catching a white seabass a rare feat.

“The abolition of near shore gillnets as well as white seabass grow out pens had everything to do with the resurgence of this regal species,” said Tom Raftican from the Sportfishing Conservancy in Belmont Shore.

 While the preferred bait for white seabass is live squid, the fish have been consuming just about anything you put in front of them,” said Ashley. “Dead squid, the iron (lures), a dead sardine; I mean its flat wide open.” 

Sport boats and private boaters from all over Southern California will be looking for more of these fine eating fish in the coming days. There is still good seabass fishing at Catalina Island as well as some hit and miss fishing in 35 feet of water between the Newport and Huntington Beach Piers in 35 feet of water. 

This bite and more was covered on Philip Friedman Outdoors Radio on www.AM830KLAA.com last night.