The First White Sea Bass

by Drew clark

I’m not a patient fisherman…honestly, I’m not a patient anything. My preferred targets of saltwater bass evidence this – it’s a fast-paced and urgent style of fishing most of the time. I’m into that constant awareness and ACTION. Dragging around a mackerel for 8 hours ain’t my bag. Today’s tournament was not going to be won with calicos, I couldn’t even weigh them in for the event, so it was big fish or bust.

I woke up with the formulated plan to go north and bounce for flatties but the combination of C-Level dissing the northern flatlands and my fish finder crapping out before I even launched nixed that gig. Instead, after hanging out and having a damn fine breakfast burrito courtesy chef Iceman, I launched into the darkness at 5am and paddled due west until the sun came up. The stars were fantastic and the half-moon was small and pinched way up in the top of the sky. I saw two shooting stars and made my wishes, one for my wife/baby combo (1 wish, right?) and one for my step-mother who started chemo therapy (breast cancer) yesterday. The third shooting star didn’t come and I missed the chance to throw down a greedy big fish wish.

Finding myself about 5 miles out when there was enough light to drop my sabiki I put the PVC bait rod to work. I’d eschewed the battery powered bait tank and substituted the bait tube instead – all things electronic seem to hate me lately and I was returning the favor. The bait tube, by the by, rocked all day. Two drops of the sabiki and I had five spanish in the can. Impaled one on the flyline and the paddling recommenced.

I worked the northwest corner and around the west side and south for about 2.5 hours with nothing to show for it, the weather was gorgeous and I was having fun just being out there alone. My Zen-like state was interrupted by an amazing explosion of yellowtails all around me in every direction. Foamers were crashing for 30 yards around me and I was completely unprepared. I cranked on my flylined bait a bit to bring him to the surface and into range and reset the clicker. Then I tossed a 2nd flylined Spanish into the fray and played him out for a few moments – finally I cranked an iron into the mess and wound with whirling power of a teenager on a cell phone. Nothing was working! Mockingly they kept at it, crashing and boiling, taunting and laughing as I tossed the iron again and again until the ring in my tip-top blew out and took the rod out of commission. Flyline bait #2 was dragged in and recast onto a boil and it instantly backlashed the spectra. Crap! As I was working through the nest the boils died with a weird suddenness that only the fish could explain…you know, if fish could talk and weren’t stupid.

The boils were almost instantly replaced by hordes of spanish mackerel pounding the ever-loving crap out of pin anchovies. I lolled around and talked with Mark Olsen, Rhino Krieger and Ed Whited for a while and then started moving into the kelp. The intention was to get to the inside section and find something to do, probably hunt calicos at the breakers near the beach but I was open. I found Mark Pierpont inside and he was whacking the bass on swimbaits and it was more than I could take. The Calcutta 250 with 10# was on board due to an inspiring Tred Barta episode I watched the night before, he was backing down on sailfish and swordfish with 10# line. Threaded on the Bleeding Mackerel pattern Big Hammer swimbait on a 3/4 oz head and muttered a warning to any calico what done crossed my path. Three casts later and the first victim fell, a healthy 3.5#. A few more casts and a couple of 13” fish later I was inside near a ling spot so a new mackerel was sent to the bottom for a drift but he was summarily ignored. Now even further inside and south (the south current was ripping!) the calicos were again under attack. 3 more legalish bass and then I saw a gorgeous site. A healthy yellowtail in the 15# class followed my swimbait most of the way home. Oooooh did that get the blood pumping. Almost immediately I saw 2 more yellows, much larger this time, circle out from under a stringer and go back inside.

The game was ON.

I began pitching the swimbait up one side and then the other of every stringer I could get near enough to cast on and have some sort of alleyway to fight in. Almost immediately a yellow dashed out, grabbed the bait and turned tail, 4WD engaged. He pulled drag for about 8 seconds and then the line snapped, too much drag. This was going to work; I knew it. Another swimbait and the pattern was repeated – work one side and the other of every kelp possible, there were lots of followers. About 30 minutes into this practice the bait was slammed on the drop and we were at it again. This fish ran straight under the canopy and was dragging me through and around stringers. The drag had been backed off but now I had to sweat the kelp on 10# line. The little Calcutta 250 took one dunk under a clump to come out the other side and free our first tangle, the fish ran again. This time we were in a thick section of giant leafy kelp laying on the surface, I decided to try and keep it vertical from that point and worked him back and forth with the rod tip under the water and through the kelp as much as possible, an attempt to avoid line damage.

Paul and Ed were trying to get my location and I was attempting to share it until I saw the fish flash under our floating argument. The sight of him stopped my willingness to discuss anything further, it was a white sea bass – he would be my first legal. I dinked the drag back a touch more and readied the gaff. The grunt and nasal clearing blast of a dog put my head on a swivel and I saw him looking at me from about 15’ off. Instant upward pressure on the fish brought a clump of kelp rising above the rest, I couldn’t see the fish but he was in there. I took a blind gaff shot and pulling him through into my lap. Sweet! Lashed and thumped and “Cheese!” for photobitch (thanks Ken!) and the morning was complete.