Black Seabass - be ready to sucessfully release one

[lamb]

This stuff made me sick in my stomach... I'm sure all of you feel the same way.

This thread has been on BloodyDecks for some time; I just managed to see it tonight. For all of you that may have missed it like I almost did, please read it... and see all the gut wrenching videos. A-B.Cs of how NOT to handle your BSB catch:

http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/in...y-updated.html









I'm not getting into whether it's cool or not that DFG didn't even cite the folks involved...

With all the new blood on BWE, I figured it's a good opportunity to remind and educate.

Black Seabass is protected spices that has been making a remarkable comeback in our waters. If you're fishing an open ocean often enough, it's just a matter of time when you'll hook one. You've got to be ready to handle it properly and promptly release it, to reduce a chance of harming the fish.

If you're on something heavy for 10+ mins and the fish seems to show now signs of slowing down, pulling you with powerful yet steady pace, you likely hooked either a thresher or a black seabass. If you're not interested in keeping the T, it's the time to tighten up a drag and horse it up. The longer you fight the BSB, the more worn out it will be when you finally get it to color... The harder it will be to revive it.

Please don't drag the fish out of the water to take a picture... If you must, snap a quick one while it's still in the water.

BSB will likely roll over on it's belly once on the surface - get the hook out, cut the line as close to the hook as you can if gut hooked.

Straighten the fish up, get the water moving through its gills...

Call on a radio for help if you can't handle it yourself (not sure how, the fish is too big to handle, you or the fish is too tired)... Kayakers always help each other out, majority of boaters will come to land a hand as well.

There are many threads on BWE and other fishing and boards on this subject - do your research, put the forum search buttons to work.

I feel the black seabass has the best chance of swimming away if you don't let the fight last till the fish is totally spent.

[T Bone]

That guy should be smacked.that is so sad.what a great fish.

[stairman]

BSB are very suseptable to embolizing also.This is when the air bladder expands due to the release of pressure due to being brought to the surface.The air in their bladder will double in size every 33 feet they are brought up.This is why they float belly up .The pressure in their belly also puts pressure on their central nervous system somewhat paralyzing them.

If you really want to be ready to quickly release the fish you need a three way swivel some 8lb test and a five pound rock cod sinker.
Take a very small hook tied up with a couple of feet of the 8lb, tie to the threeway.Tie your heaviest line available to the swivel and a snap swivel to the threeway for the weight.
Lower the bsb slowly to the depth you caught him at and troll as slowly as possible in no time the fish will revive and break the 8lb and be fine.

If the bsb is very small you will need to hook the fish under as small a bit of mouth skin you can ,lower the fish and yank sharply on the lineto break the hook away.

this works for small rock cod too and if your gonna fish them you will catch small ones that are so small to be not worth filleting.This has to be done quickly.once recompressed the fish will be able to swim off like you caught it in ten feet of water.If you have ever caught reds up in the north in real shallow water they will swim just like a calico when released.Recompressing them does this same thing but be fast about it.
This is what they do for divers in recompressure chambers.They increase the pressure to make the gas bubbles of nitrogen that have formed in your body from too much bottom time...then they gradully let the pressure return to normal.Fish don't need to have the recompression chamber ,they live in one just, put em back where you found them.

my .02$

[-scallywag-]

That is the best way if you have the sinker. There seem to be alot of BSB's around so having that setup around is a good thing, specially if your fishing for WSB w/bait, but they hit the iron too.

FOR HOBIE USERS: Just gently remove the hook and grab it by the lip and tow it around, even if the swim bladder is inflated it will eventually deflate as you tow it around to keep the water moving, usually takes only five min and the fish swim back happy.

What ever you do, DON"T POP THE BLADDER, and don't be "that guy" on the pier.

[blitzburgh]

Thanks for all of the good tips guys. I've never caught one but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Now I will be ready!

[Useful Idiot]

This video makes me absolutely sick. Thank god I wasn't on that beach that day, I think you would've seen one live seabass and one dead human. Unbelievable.

[dsafety]

The BSB are out there. I caught a small one last week on an iron. It was my first so I have not had to deal with how to release one of these fish until now. The good news is that while this kind of fish can be very large, they are also quite docile after being brought to the surface.

Their skin is very tough and I had a hard time removing the hook. Once released, my fish slowly swam away with no apparent damage. In my case, no resuscitation was necessary. This is not always the case.

There is a thread somewhere on this forum that shows a great video of a guy jumping off his kayak after catching a large BSB. From the water he gently rocked th fish back in forth until it had regained enough energy to swim away. Very cool.

It was great to finally see one of these majestic fish up close but I got a better feeling watching this beauty heading home.

Bob