Offishial Business Outdoors

While at Catalina and watching my wife and some friends fishing for seabass in a less-than-wide-open bite, I realized that to the untrained hands, its hard to tell the difference between a seabass bite and a perch bite. So I wrote about it.

If I copy/paste the article on here, the photos don't work. So click the link to see the photos.

http://captainonboard.org/?p=1200

When to Swing on Catalina Seabass




Posted on June 9, 2013



Sitting on the shoreline at Silver Lake up in the high Sierras
fishing trout, my kids and I are soaking Power Bait in a light breeze.
The wind makes the tips of the ultralight rods twitch, and I get “am I
getting a bite Daddy?” every 10 seconds or so. ”Patience boys, you’ll
know when you get a bite.” It doesn’t work, and one or the other is
constantly reeling in to check their bait. Finally I look them both in
the eye and say “if you think you are getting a bite, you are not. If you know
you are getting a bite, then turn the handle and lift the rod hard.”
Even though this went down 300 miles from Catalina, I couldn’t help but
think how true this is when fishing for white seabass.

Flash forward to late spring, 2013 at Catalina and I am watching my
wife fish with a light lead head couple squid pinned on. We’re sitting
on the anchor in 45′ of water outside a prominent kelp line on the back,
and she is getting picked at by perch, small calicos and such. She’s
swinging on the better of the pecks, and quickly going through the
little live squid we have for the day. I step closer, and notice she
has her reel in gear while soaking a bait. Time for an intervention.

“It played with my bait forever” my wife said after landing this seabass. A little on the water coaching and she was good to go.

When fishing for seabass or yellowtail at Catalina, you’ll need to
ignore the perch bites. Leaving the reel in free spool while
controlling the line on the spool with your fingertips is key to letting
the business end of your line go, so perch and small bass don’t steal
your bait. Its like working with a roll of toilet paper, if the roll is
stuffed into one of those gas station multi roll holder things, all you
get is little pieces of tissue torn off because of the resistance,
while at home you may get the whole roll if you don’t use two hands.
Same principle with a delicate squid on a thin wire hook. Apply
pressure or have your reel in gear, and the peckers will rip the bait
off every time.

Now deciphering the feel of a perch bite and a seabass bite may sound
easy, but sometimes its not. Nowadays with Spectra, short top shots
and uber sensitive graphite rods, its easier to feel the difference but
it still takes time to learn. To translate the feel of a seabass bite
into a tangible reality, try visualizing a big, slow, lazy croaker
cruising into a school of perch to check out what’s happening out of
curiosity. The seabass circles the bait, then turns and sucks the bait
into its big mouth. Almost faster than the eye can see, it spits it
back out. On the rod you are holding, that will be a sharp tap or thud,
very different than the pecks of the perch. Now that the fish has had a
taste he swims around and picks up the bait again. (Don’t worry about
whether the bait is tattered and torn from the perch or first seabass
bite, he still wants it, trust me.) Now is the time when its most
important to be in free spool, because if the reel is in gear you risk
pulling the bait out of its mouth or pulling the hook before its in
position to hook the fish.

A wary seabass may drop the bait and pick it back up several times
before actually eating it. What to do now is thumb the spool lightly
and hold the rod tip half way between pointing at the fish and full set
up position. Finger hold the spool and lift the rod slowly, to see if
it loads up. If the rod loads up, then goes slack, drop the tip and let
the seabass have another chance at the bait. If the rod loads up and
the fish begins to pull, put the reel in gear, wind down and set him up.
This whole process could take a fraction of a second, or several
minutes, depending on how good the fish are biting. With little to no
current and less than ideal conditions, the bites will be this subtle a
good percentage of the time.

Here you see the rod loading up. If the fish drops the bait, drop the tip and let it get another look.



Another look, and another bite.

Rod loads up and the seabass does not drop the bait. Wind down and SWING while grinding. HOOK-UP!!!!



In a wide open big seabass bite where many fish are hooked and
caught, it becomes almost laughable how everyone notices the little taps
before hooking a big seabass. A large school of seabass will, at
times, scare off all perch and small pecker/grabbers so you know the
only bites you are getting are seabass bites. Still, some of the
attention your bait gets feels like the smallest of perch nipping at
your live squid.



If you just can’t stand trying to feel the difference between a
seabass bite and a perch bite, then a dropper loop or jig/squid combo is
for you. Just know that this set-up works way better when the rod is
left in the rod holder, in gear with the drag set to fight the fish.
Otherwise you’ll swing at every perch bite and go through a tremendous
amount of bait. Even worse, you’ll spend too much time winding in,
changing baits and dropping back while not having your bait in the zone
where it needs to be. Just remember what I tell my boys, “If you think its a seabass bite, its not. Its only a seabass bite when you KNOW its a seabass bite.” When you are sure, then swing away.

Awesome read and so very true, i line fish all the time meaning feel the line and see whats going on.

Great read Capt Jeff.