80Lb Corvina "Argyrosomus regius"

[Sparrow]

From May to July is the season of Corvinas (european cousin of your White Sea Bass) here in Portugal, so me and my buddys, Ramos and Bruno were try them near the "Vasco da Gama" bridge in Lisbon.
Leave you a photo report of our adventure, where I beat my personal record with a 79.36 Lb Corvina.























My two buddys also caught good fish. Ramos with a 44Lb Corvina and Bruno with two of around 35Lb.

[rogersmith]

wow! thanks for sharing, great fish

[oneyedeer]

back in the days we use to catch em at the infamous salton sea....boy those were good old days and they taste just as good as any WSB. to my knowledge those days are gone

[FishNinjaY]

great pics!

[blitzburgh]

Wow!

[steveooo]

That's too cool! Thanks for sharing the pics, and congrats on the new personal best

[danjor]

That is one big fish! Great chatch

[silverbullet]

WTF!?? Beasts!

Nicely done...

[Ramos23]

It was a day unforgettable which we will never forget


Thank you Sparrow for the report and for having shared my photos


Best Regards

[ratdog]

Nice catches. The cousins have some teeth!

[JeffB]

Nice pigs!

[DanaPT]

now that the word is out the whole world will be poaching your spot!

nice photos... ugly mouths...pretty fish!

[Zfish03]

That thing is stupid huge! Congrats
Fish of a life time

[frugalfisher]

Great catch!!!

[Aaron&Julie]

Congratulations on your fabulous catch(es), beautiful fish, indeed.

Those are definitely in the same family (Croakers) as our Corvinas, White Sea Bass, and Totuava or Totoaba (same fish, called differently), along with many other family members.

When I was a kid in the mid 60s, I first learned to fish for trout on camping trips to Idaho at a place called Smith Creek, at age five, with a 6' willow pole, 6' feet of 8lb line, a small split-shot, single eagle claw #8 hook, and earth worms I dug myself. Right away I was outfishing my grandpa, with his Zebco, Panther Martins, flies, etc. But, I was fascinated when grandpa would tell me stories of going to San Felipe (Baja California) and talk about catching Totuava as big as your fish and bigger (over 100lbs). It impressed me, as those fish weighed more than I did.

Mexico has for years, banned the catch of Totuava because their numbers decreased so drastically from overfishing. Apparently they were much easier to find by fishermen than even our White Sea Bass.

I remember a few years back a 'yakker caught what he called a White Sea Bass near the San Felipe area, coming in near 85lbs. To me it looked like a Totuava making it an illegal catch. They do look very much alike, but the Totuava has more of a slight hump on his back right towards the front of his dorsel fin than WSB do. Anyways I don't recall his name, nor that it matters. Just a heads up for any Kayakers in that area, make sure you know the exact difference. You don't want to end up in a Mexican prison for catching something illegal that looked like a huge White. There's got to be some Totuavas still around, so it could happen.
Aaron

[JarrodMc]

Hey Sparrow! Sweet haul. Thanks for the post. Look forward to seeing more!

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

From May to July is the season of Corvinas (european cousin of your White Sea Bass) here in Portugal, so me and my buddys, Ramos and Bruno were try them near the "Vasco da Gama" bridge in Lisbon. Leave you a photo report of our adventure, where I beat my personal record with a 79.36 Lb Corvina.

I don't know much about your fishery but you got me wondering if you may have got two different fish there. The larger one looks like a close relative of our Totoaba and the smaller ones look closer to our Corvina. Totoabas get much larger then Corvina but the way to tell them apart is their tails. Your big fish has the same tail as our giant totoaba.



While the smaller fish have the tails that look more like our Corvina.

[Fiskadoro]

So I did some reading. Looks like your Corvina has flatter tails when young, and a more pointed tail as it get's older, size wise it's right between our two fish. Our corvina max out at fifty pounds, your corvina get's to around a 50kg, while the Totoaba reaches 100kg.

Your larger fish looks more like a Totoaba to me, but then again it's big, and it has a more pointed tail. Looking around I found some info about fish farming your corvina in the Nile Delta which got me thinking it might spawn in fresh water. Totoaba spawn in the Colorado River Delta, and the young fish stay there for a while in brackish water before heading out to sea. Turns out your Corivina also spawns in estuaries like deltas and the young fish stay there for a while in the brackish water before heading out to sea. Our Corvina spawn in saltwater like our White Seabass, (another local relative of the Corivina) so I'd say your fish is probably has more similarities biologically to our larger fish the totoaba.

Great catch!!! Just a beautiful fish.

I wish we had those fish here. Like I said they are similar to the Totoaba but Totoaba are mainly south of us in the Gulf of California, and their numbers have severely declined since the Dams were built above their spawning grounds, and they started diverting the majority of the water out of the Colorado river.

I've a friend that caught one in the Gulf and supposedly there were even a few of them in the Salton sea a long time ago, but I've never seen one and probably never will since they are critically endangered and probably aren't going to be around much longer. They just didn't think much about fish conservation in the 1930s. Completed within a few years of each other Boulder dam destroyed the Totoaba fishery, and Grand Coulee Dam killed off a legendary run of Giant Chinook the largest Salmon in the Americas that routinely exceeded 100 pounds.



Great post, keep them coming!!!

Jim