The following is a guest report written by Philip Friedman, founder of 976-TUNA, which covers saltwater fishing off Southern California and beyond, and host of Fish Talk Radio and the new PhilipFriedmanOutdoors Internet radio program:
Wahoo are not supposed to be caught inside Long Beach Harbor and opah are not supposed to swim up on the beach -- both recent occurrences -- so I guess on the grand scale, Saturday morning's wide-open white seabass bite on a 976-TUNA charter aboard the Sea Horse out of Dana Wharf Sportfishing pales in significance.
However, it's still noteworthy. White seabass spawn during the spring off Southern California and that's normally when anglers experience the most prolific seabass bite. But 2010 has been anything but normal.
Unusually cold water prevailed throughout the summer and about the only upside was that it provided anglers with a steady supply of market-sized squid. Squid and seabass just go together so when Sea Horse skipper Todd Nelson pulled in to San Clemente Island on Friday night, he knew he had a chance to catch some delectable white seabass, but he never expected what happened.
At 3 a.m. Saturday, white seabass in the 20- to 50-pound class went on a feeding frenzy. Every angler who cast a squid in to the sea was greeted with a freight-train seabass that stripped line off their reels with the greatest of ease. By 4:45 a.m. more than 70 white seabass had been plucked from the sea -- three-fish limits for all.
"We never saw another boat or another light; we were all alone and have just had an incredible experience," Nelson said.
-- Philip Friedman
Note: Nelson will be a guest on Fish Talk Radio tonight at 8 p.m. and on PhilipFriedmanOutdoors Saturday at 8 a.m.
Photo: Angler (right) and deckhand display one of many quality seabass caught aboard the Sea Horse. Credit: Dana Wharf Sportfishing
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