92.5lb WSB not in our waters cought in july

Any one know what the weight of the second fish was ?  Did not look like the site was visitor friendly as far as searching photos , etc.

93.4#

Absolutely shattering the old record of 80#. 

Any one know what the weight of the second fish was ?  Did not look like the site was visitor friendly as far as searching photos , etc.

93.4#

Absolutely shattering the old record of 80#. 

I dont think it was actually a WSB (Atractoscion nobilis), so no records were broken wrt WSB.
 From fishbase.org:

Distribution
Eastern Pacific: Alaska to southern Baja California, Mexico and the Gulf of California.

It would have to be a very big lost fish to be a WSB.

My guess is it was what we refer to with the common name in South Africa as Kabeljou or Kob, of the family Sciaenidae, possibly of the genus Argyrosomus, but not an actual White Seabass

Ive been discussing this with friends. Around the world there are quite a number types of these large croakers. Many of them act the same, pretty much look the same, and luckily the ones ive tasted are IMO the best eating fish around.(from my exp often subtle diffs in tail shape is the laymans way to tell species apart where they are found in the same area)
So loosley speaking, it was a large Croaker, similar to a WSB.

Regarding that second fish (blue speedo guy), here's the story.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1748238.php

Ok, so Im confused. Was the original post not about a croaker landed in Spain? And obviously the socal fish WAS a WSB, and a contender.

Yeah, to recap: yakee's original post was about the big croaker caught in Spain (the guy in the Euro trunks humping a fish). But then Art hijacked it with a pic of Bill Ernst's record speedo...err, seabass. 
According to that article, Bill saw another fish that was even bigger than the one he shot. Said it looked to be over 100lbs!

First off when I saw the first picture I heard the voice of our very own fishunter. He was repeating the same thing over about 3 or 4 times.......I guess it sounded like he was spelling RUN.  It really went downhill from there.
Thanks for the laughs;

Ebye Kewabjeget

Yeah, to recap: yakee's original post was about the big croaker caught in Spain (the guy in the Euro trunks humping a fish). But then Art hijacked it with a pic of Bill Ernst's record speedo...err, seabass. 
According to that article, Bill saw another fish that was even bigger than the one he shot. Said it looked to be over 100lbs!

So the original is the guy humping the toad right.

Is that better?

Bill Ernst, blue speedo guy & in Ravensblack's pic, is the current WR holder for WSB via spearfishing at 93.4#.  He was nice enough to let a bunch of us stay at his place in Malibu for Nationals & has a fiberglass mount of that WSB in his living room.  What gets me the most is the huge difference between the old world record and his.  The 80# mark has stood for quite a while... and to crush it by over 13# makes the feat all the more amazing!



As sharky pointed out, there are a lot of species similar to WSB throughout the world.  Mulloways in Australia, Corvina in Europe, Totuava in Mexico, etc.

Here's a 45.8kg monster corvina landed in a European spearfishing competition... with a small 90cm speargun!
http://www.pescasubacquea.net/public/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2951

Here's a 44.5kg mulloway landed by a buddy in Australia:
http://whiteseabass.com/photos/100_7535.JPG

Totuava, found in Mexico, can reach a few hundred #:
http://www.cardcow.com/images/totuava-the-percomorph-fishes-animals-fish-39279.jpg

Jesus Christ Harold the 2nd pic is GD amazing. I would like to know more about this feat. Like how deep do you have to dive for the fish and do you have a huge float attached to the gun? Supported by a boat? Mr Ernst in So Cal. is pretty amazing also. Are WSB's relatively easy to hunt?  Damn I need to hone up on depth and time.

That wasn't even the biggest fish taken that day!  Will's buddy got the new WR with a fish .5kg bigger.  Not sure if he submitted it though...
Will's fish was shot with a 130cm Rob Allen speargun.


WSB aren't necessarily hard to shoot.  The hardest part is just being in the right place at the right time.  Having the right information network to know when the fish are in the kelpbeds thick is probably just as important as diving abilities.  My big fish have largely been a result of my buddy doing some research and informing me when and where the fish are holding up.   As for depth, I'd estimat that ~90% of California WSB are shot in the top 20ft of the water column.  No floats necessary, just a long floatline.  Floats would generally be a hinderance in the thick kelp.  After their strong first run, their muscles seize up and often end up wrapping the shooting line around a kelp stalk.  If you're lucky, they've wrapped up shallow enough that retrieval won't be too dangerous/difficult.


Though similar in shape, mulloways have a lot different characteristics than WSB.  Aussie hunters often find them in caves in areas with high surf/surge... something you'd never see WSB doing.  Here's a good example of the strikingly different environments mulloways enjoy:

Fuzz, yeah my bad. I got confused btwn the 2 fish on this post, and your buddy's in the blue speedo is one helluva WSB! So I was wrong when I said no WSB records were broken. I apologize for questioning your post.

Where did you get that snippet of info for the Tortuva. Notice in the info they call WSB by its old latin name. They also talk of the fish congregating @ the mouth of the Colorado R. Does that river even have a mouth any more? I thought we sucked up all thw H2O b4 it gets to the sea?

Ill try and scrape up some pics, but in South Africa we have 3 kinds of Kob ( of the genus Argyrosomus) and the closest living relative to the WSB (Atractoscion nobilis), the Geelbek (Atractoscion aequidens) They are all croakers and take a little konw how to tell them apart.

Fuzz, yeah my bad. I got confused btwn the 2 fish on this post, and your buddy's in the blue speedo is one helluva WSB! So I was wrong when I said no WSB records were broken. I apologize for questioning your post.

Where did you get that snippet of info for the Tortuva. Notice in the info they call WSB by its old latin name. They also talk of the fish congregating @ the mouth of the Colorado R. Does that river even have a mouth any more? I thought we sucked up all thw H2O b4 it gets to the sea?

Ill try and scrape up some pics, but in South Africa we have 3 kinds of Kob ( of the genus Argyrosomus) and the closest living relative to the WSB (Atractoscion nobilis), the Geelbek (Atractoscion aequidens) They are all croakers and take a little konw how to tell them apart.

Sorry, I admittedly didn't read the content... just image-searched on google.  The common name is generally either Totuava or Totoaba.  They're considered endangered now and protected by the Mex. government. 

Here's a good article on them:
http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/mainland-mexico-fishing-reports-discussion/126872-totuava-2.html#post1178405

Another (with lots of old pics!):
http://www.wonews.com/t-OtheSpotFeature-Totoaba-BillBeebe-091609.aspx

Here's a wiki entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totoaba

Hey Fuzz when I saw the vid you posted up I kind of felt sorry for that last fish the dude speared. Im wish he would have killed it before the end of the vid. With it sitting there in his grasp while trying to breathe was a bit much. I hated that guy for that.

fuzz, it seems that the Aussie Mulloway is the vernacular name for the same fish we call Kob, or Kabeljou of the genus    Argyrosomus (info from fishbsase.org). As Kob reffers to a few species of Argyrosomus it seems Mulloway does too. my guess is that the bigger ones are of the species japonicus. I wish i could find the photo of me holding up (with the help of dad) one bigger than myself at age 10.

Quite a story. We were out in water much deeper than these fish are normally caught, fishing for "rockfish". The bite was all but non existant. I baited my handline with a coctail of squid and mack. My dad and his buddy both said to me that that presentation wouldnt catch anything but shark.

Undeterred, and wanting to change things up AND prove the elders wrong i sent it down. Some time later I "snagged the bottom", but we were on anchor and the "bottom" started to move. I was immediatly chastsized by the elders. " told ya so! now we gotta pull in that hadline so we dont waste the line. As soon as it gets close well cut it off!", So with help from dad we pulled the "large shark" from the depths.

After awhile dad said to his friend "its gotta be close, bring me the knife." As Derrick got to the rail and started to had him the knife we saw color. That knife LITERALLY fell overboard and sank to the bottom  . I believe that fish was in the 30kg range, not huge for a Kob but big enough.