Haven't been able to go fishing much lately so I was really looking forward to San Onofre on Sunday. Arrived at about 9:30am on a declining tide to see 28-30 rods in sand spikes, Yikes! The most long rod surf fishermen I've ever see there. My girlfriend was the only one fishing with a light salmon rod.

Noticed spotfin croakers, yellowfin croakers and barred surfperch being caught along with an occasional ray or sand shark. Most everyone was using lugworms for bait. I was targeting spotfins with lugworms, shrimp and sand crabs for no luck.

Decided to go for a bigger bait and a bigger fish, maybe a large leopard shark. Out goes a small whole squid about 100 yards and minutes later the clicker goes off! At first I thought it was a big piece of seaweed because I couldn't really budge it but then the line started to move southward pretty fast. Seemed like a nice sized leopard as the fish swims south and then north. After a nice fun battle, in comes a 25" white sea bass. After a few quick photos, the fish is released. The WSB jumps in the air as he swims to open water, what a sight! That fish made my day.

Link to picture:
http://www.pierfishing.com/msgboard/pfmb.mv?forum=&module=view&viewid=126130&mode=all&row=0

Just a reminder that WSB are are much more fragile than the typical fish brought in from the surf. At the time the fish was caught, it definitely was a predicament to try to figure out what was the best way to catch and release this fish in the surf. When I originally posted, I was wondering if I should mention how this WSB was handled as gently as possible, since a lot of shore based fishermen may not be aware of how fragile WSB are. From the pictures, it's hard to see that the ground was just drenched from the wave that the fish was brought in on, so it's slime coat was lying on drenched ground. I've observed 24"-28" WSB foraging in the surf very similarly to corbina in less than 1' water, so I know that they do come in contact with wet sand and stones when feeding.

The fish was also never dragged on the sand or stones. The WSB lay there after being pulled in with a wave, on TOP of the water(not dragged through water over sand or stones) and then gently settled on the wet ground as the wave receded. A quick photo was then taken and the fish was released with a lip grip and without being handled by hands, very quickly. Would have been nice to release the fish while still in the water but with a 12' rod and no one close enough to to help, trying a release while in the churning surf might really hurt the fish badly. The fish was released in a healthy condition with it's slime coat intact. On a boat there are definitely better options when releasing fish. Hope that catch and release in the surf description helps others in the same predicament. An extra long lip grip might have been a good way to C'nR the fish too. Surfan

lucky wsb...
great release job, this is the right way to fish.

pargo-lsb, lucky WSB and lucky to have caught him. That was the first WSB from shore for me. Surfan