Ghost chasers

[FoodGeekFish]

If you are planning to fish for white seabass in 2025, CDFW could use your help. The Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program (OREHP) is launching a large-scale fin clip collection effort. By sending CDFW your white seabass fin clips, we can extract Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to see if the fish came from the hatchery. If you are interested in assisting the OREHP, please contact OREHP@wildlife.ca.gov for a fin clip collection kit.

[Saba Slayer]

Isn't modern science wonderful
I remember when "United Anglers" was suppling freezers at a lot of the landings and a few tackle stores to store the heads of the WSB until a HUBBs rep was able to pick them up then wave a wand over them to see if they contained an encoded wire tag. Hubbs contends that the wire tags were working their way out of the fish since they are imbedded when the fish are tiny and that was the cause for low return numbers at times.
This DNA system is a sure fire way to determine if the mature fish are Hatchery fish.
Now you get to keep the heads and pull those beautiful stones out yourself.