Mali-Boo

[yaksailor]

It seems to me that October is the best month to fish around here. It's warmer and sunnier than July. With the warming trend starting earlier this week and the moon and sun aligning, we took the day off and hit Maliboo.

The water was cooler, but no matter; the fish were biting. Plenty of bait in the water along with calicos, sand bass and rock fish. Austin had the hot lure of the day: a sardine tail pinned on to a chartreuse jig-head. I'm not sure that I've ever seen that before, but the fish really like it. I guess you could call it bait or lure, dunno.

We caught around 20 and kept the best 6.

Some nice rock fish:






Here's a nice sand dab (I hope). If he was a sand dab, hypothetically speaking, I hypothetically got 4 nice tacos from him:




The fun fish:

[Vikingj]

Nice job. Looks like that baitlure really works. Neat idea - thanks for sharing.
Wayne

[StinkyMatt]

Great photos, nice trip.

Conditions looked great.

This is exactly what I'm hoping for this weekend.

[ODOGFISH]

man Austin sure has grown sense I frist started reading your reports on G.B. ... nice catch'n you two ... how were the sand dab tacos

[sterling]

Someone once told me that if there are orange dots/circles on the brown side you can rest easy that in fact it is a Sand dab. Can anyone confirm this? Looking closely it kind of seems there is this orange coloration in the pic.

[Amish Ed]

That's the biggest sand dab I've ever seen. Nice job.

[wiredantz]

i didn't know sand dabs got so big!

[Fiskadoro]

Incredibly cool!!!

Not a Sanddab or Halibut because the eyes are on the wrong side. The eyes are the wrong shape for an Arrowtooth flounder, and I don't see any big teeth so I'd say it's a Sand Sole, or possibly a Petrale Sole.

Cool catch! Kinda rare down here. I always love it when I get unusual flatfish.

Jim

[danjor]

That's def a dab cause a butt has a high arch in its lateral line where as dabs do not. Lateral line on that fish is not arched like a butt so its a dab. A damn big one at that great job!

[fishsouthcounty]

Originally Posted by danjor

That's def a dab cause a butt has a high arch in its lateral line where as dabs do not. Lateral line on that fish is not arched like a butt so its a dab. A damn big one at that great job!

there are other flatfish besides dabs and halibuts....id go with Jim on this one.

Either way nice day of fishin out there. Looks like pretty perfect conditions.

[blackcloud9]

Nice stringer of brown rockfish.

As Jim Day pointed out above, there are a whole host of flatfishes out
there, not just halibut and sand dabs.

Please also see this page for more:
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mspcont8.asp

Note the newly updated lingcod minimum length is now down to 22".
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mapregs5.asp#lingcod_open

[Aaron&Julie]

Nice haul for some good eats.
I'd go with Jim, too, some type of sole. Definitely not a halibut, so you didn't take anything illegal. But Jim, halibut can be either right-eyed or left-eyed.

[mtnbykr2]

That was definately a "dab" I c&r'd one about that size earlier this year...
nice job Austin, I am followin you around from now on....lol

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by fishsouthcounty

there are other flatfish besides dabs and halibuts...

Yep people don't realize the number of different flatfishes can catch around here especially north of PV. People generally think that anything big is a halibut and anything small is a dab.

. The mouth is too large and the wrong shape for a sandab. The eyes are to small and the wrong angle but most importantly Sandabs are in the family Bothidae (Left-eyed flounders) Just like halibut where that fish is in the family Pleuronectidae (Right-eyed flounders)

Here's a pic of a Sandab for comparison:


Notice the size and angle of the eyes, and how they are both on the left side of it's head.


There are a number of family Pleuronectidae (Right-eyed flounders) around local, over the years I've caught most of them fishing Santa Monica Bay. In SMB we get both the warmer water flatfish from the south and the colder water ones in the winter from up North.


Like I said it could be a Petrale Sole:


but the body is too long and Petrale soles eyes are slightly larger and tilt out to the side almost like a Arrowtooth flounder:


It's not and Arrowtooth as they are longer and have a more pronounced Jaw and teeth.

It's definitely not a Starry:


Our local Starrys' are much darker then that one almost black with less orange on the fins but they still look nothing like his fish.

The only other common family Pleuronectidae (Right-eyed flounder) we catch around here is a Sand Sole:




That's definitely what it looks like to me, though I suppose it still could be a long skinny Petrale Sole with a straighter lateral line... lol.

Like I said there's a lot of flatfish around. Over the years in SMB I've caught all those fish plus a few others which I could not identify. One of the coolist was a 2 pound fish that had reddish brown tone, white, black and orange spots, was shaped like a small halibut but had a oversized glassine mouth like a crappie with no teeth. Never could figure out what it was. Summer caught fish might of been up from Mexico.

At any rate it's definitely not a halibut or dab. Like In said probably a Sand Sole. They are more common up North but do come down as far as SMB so that's what I'd guess.

Very cool. I love catching weird flatfish and they are always so good eating.

Jim

[steveooo]

Originally Posted by Jim Day

Just like halibut where that fish is in the family Pleuronectidae (Right-eyed flounders)

Jim

I don't have a clue about what type of fish that is, but I do know I've caught both Right and Left Eyed Halibut









And here is one sort of sole that puked up a big 'ol mantis shrimp. Pretty Cool...



Eiter way, looks like a fun outing to me

Thanks for the report

[yaksailor]

Yeah, not sure, it didn't look like a sand dab. No big circles or darker areas; just a plain carpet of same color dots on him. Even after some time in the cooler, same uniform pattern throughout.

The four fillets were quite big; they stuck out ~2" from both sides of the taco shell. Maybe ~1.5" wide. Unfortunately, the meat was a little mushy, but tastey. Wasn't like sand dabs that I've had at restaurants. He did have teeth.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Aaron&Julie

But Jim, halibut can be either right-eyed or left-eyed.

Yes that is true. I read a study about it once where they calculated the numbers, the percentages of eye side aberrations per flatfish.

It's really kinda interesting. Flatfish when young have their eyes on either side of the head like normal fish but over time one eye migrates over to the other side so that both eyes end up on the same side of the head by the time the become adults. Different genus of flatfish have their eyes move to different sides, but in almost all have a predominant side, which is why they are classified as one family or the other.

California halibut are in the family Bothidae (Left-eyed flounders) and the majority of them do have both eyes on the left side of their heads as adults, but something like 39% of them end up with their eyes on the wrong side. That's actually a really high rate of aberration and not that common for flatfish.

For example Pacific Halibut are from the family Pleuronectidae (Right-eyed flounders) and the majority of them have their eyes on the right side:



They have caught left eye'd Pacific Halibut but they are extremely rare only something like less then 1 in 10,000 end up with their eyes on the left side.

I'm not sure what the aberration rate is for sandabs but I know they are from family Bothidae (Left-eyed flounders) and if I remember correctly the aberration rate for them is very low, so almost all of them you catch local are left eyed.

That said nothing is written in stone for instance with Starry Flounder almost 100% of them caught off Japan are right eyed, in Alaska 30% of them have eyes on the left and off California it's 50/50 with almost equal numbers having their eyes on the left or right.

Jim

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by steveooo

And here is one sort of sole that puked up a big 'ol mantis shrimp. Pretty Cool...

Petrale Sole!

Dude!!! Quality Goofy footed Halibut to be sure!!

Jim

[blitzburgh]

Awesome stuff!

[taggermike]

California halibut are one of the very few flat fish that show both right and left eyed in a single population. I worked with a flat fish expert from Norway on an experiemental halibut rearing trial at the Hubbs hatchery. We raised many batches of halibut from egg to 4-6 inches and we always saw about 60/40 left eyed to right. We have a bunch of smaller flat fish in Cali. If you dive you see more than if you hook and line. Diamond turbot, sand sole, rock sole, CO turbot, curl fin, horny head. Up in nor cal they used to sell sand dabs and rex sole fresh and super cheap. Good eating little fish. Mike