HELP! Black Sea Bass ?'s

OK guys, Can anyone help me out here? For some strange reason I've always targeted chinook and coho salmon along w/ your typical fresh water species while kayak fishing.  I finally gave sea bass a try and man am feeling like an idiot for waiting so long.    Not only do they taste great... but they are a blast to play.

So now for all my newbie questions...

#1- I've been using 4-6" rootbeer colored plastics w/ a 1/2 - 5/8 oz. lead head and I've been using braided leader line and 8 lb. tess. Am I in the right ballpark here?
#2- I've been hitt'n the hole usually an hour before low tide through the incoming tide (usually 'till I can't see the rocks anymore). Is that time ideal or am I off?

#3- I've been bouncing my jig off the bottom while drifting along the rocks, but notice one guy who is dropping anchor about 20 yrds. away from rocks w/ a light spinning setup and working his jig along the rocks. He seems to usually do better than me. What size rod and reel should I be doing this with taking into consideration that I often hook into lings by accident and don't want to get too light?
#4- Do lings go after the same setup as black sea bass or am I just getting lucky?

#5- Do bass really live to be 120 yrs old?  If I keep catching my 10 bass and 2 lings every few days am I wiping them out or are they a tidal fish with new schools coming in w/ the tides?

#6- What kind of scents do you use?

Thanks for the great forum disc. and any help.

-wetwhopper

welcome to the salty side...

1. good choice on plastics. get a wider variety of colors and sizes. Try 'em all, different conditions require different presentations.

8 pound test and 1/2 ounce leads are great for casting like that other guy was doing for Blacks on the topwater, that is great fun. You could also use this setup for jigging bottom but you'll lose most large fish. I use down to 1 1/2 inch scampi/swim shad and 1/4 ounce jigs for topwater. Lings will come up and grab em once in a while.

For bottom jigging i would use 20-30 pound  braid. I am thinking about starting to use a 30 pound mono leader to prevent the jig from hooking the braid like it wants to do sometimes, but i haven't up to this point. I have been just using 20 pound power pro staright to the normally 1 ounce jighead. Jumping up to 30 pound when funds allow.

2. Most the time i don't worry about the tide to beat the afternoon wind but prefer to fish the incoming tide like you are doing.

3. I use a 6 foot medium action(6-15 pound line) ugly stik w/10 pound power pro on a shimano tx4000 spinning reel. The big blacks really tear line off it.

4. Yes,they do go after the same rig, especially bouncing it off the bottom. I usually start out with the big 6 inch plastics bouncing bottom hard for lings. If i get alot of tailbiting, i shrink it down. Pull it off the bottom a little for more Black action.

5.Briannnnnn!!....They live a long time! from what i've seen there's billions of 'em...do you need 10+2 every few days? nothing wrong with CPR.

6. i use right guard....oh, fish scents, none, but i will drift with a herring  dragging bottom on rare occasion if i get bored of jiggin, and bring some herring.

There's other ways to do it, that's just how i do it...

Thanks for the great info Roy. 

I like the random herring idea and I LOVE how cheap the plastics are. Note taken on 30 lb. mono.

It seems like everytime I get a few fish and crab I end up giving it to friends. I'd like to get some in the freezer. It's nice to know there's plenty to go around. 

Thanks for the great info Roy. 

I like the random herring idea and I LOVE how cheap the plastics are. Note taken on 30 lb. mono.

It seems like everytime I get a few fish and crab I end up giving it to friends. I'd like to get some in the freezer. It's nice to know there's plenty to go around. 

Yea, plastics are ok, but getting more expensive and lead is way expensive. need to find a place and buy it in bulk i guess

By all means keep your limit, share with friends. My neighbors love fishing season..

Where did you fish by the way?

To catch black sea bass, the first thing you'll want to do is move to the East Coast where you can find them.    (Sorry, fish common names are a pet peeve of mine.)

Now, if you want to catch black rockfish (or even "black rockcod" if you must), what Roy said was pretty good.

As for age, there are some rockfish that get up to 100 years old, but I don't believe black rockfish are one of them.   According to Dr. Milton Love (big rockfish scientist from California), the oldest recorded rockfish was 36 years old and about 26 inches long.

According to some of the length to age charts I've seen, an average 17 inch black rockfish is about 10 years old and  a 20 inch fish is about 15 years old.


Oh, and here's a picture of a real black sea bass (which is in the grouper/sea bass family).

To catch black sea bass, the first thing you'll want to do is move to the East Coast where you can find them.    (Sorry, fish common names are a pet peeve of mine.)

Oh, and here's a picture of a real black sea bass (which is in the grouper/sea bass family).

Somebody needs to go fishing..... 

I use a medium fast action 7'6" steelhead rod with a Shimano Cardiff 301, loaded with 30lbs powerpro.  good for jigging all day, as well as casting.

My normal setup is a 3 oz. leadhead with a 5-6" swimbait, and two shrimp flies on dropper loops above that - the leader I'm using for this is something like 80lbs mono.  Most of the rocks that I take hit the shrimp flies, although I have watched a black zoom in from under my yak and take the swimbait as I was reeling in.  The bigger rocks that I have brought up (the quillbacks that I caught last summer) latched onto the swimbait.  3oz. gets me to the bottom nice and fast on most days, although if I were doing more casting I would probably throw 1 oz.

It sounds like you already have a pretty decent setup - I'd switch up to heavier spectra line (the 30lbs PP is about the same diameter or smaller as 10lbs mono), and then do a 6-10' mono topshot if you are planning on doing serious jigging.

All this black sea bass talk is making me miss the jetties in Charleston harbor

O.K.  Thanks for Black Rockfish educ. 101 guys.  Im tak'n notes and lickn my chops!

As for age, there are some rockfish that get up to 100 years old, but I don't believe black rockfish are one of them.   According to Dr. Milton Love (big rockfish scientist from California), the oldest recorded rockfish was 36 years old and about 26 inches long.

I've seen a few times when i was cleaning fish people coming up to the cleaning station with 23-24 inch black rockfish, mostly from Simpsons Reef area. Reeally big suckers,thick..I want to get into some of those.. Not for eating, but points of course.

One thing i don't get is why is the fishing seemingly better and better grade of fish closer to a gazillion seals/sea lions?

One thing i don't get is why is the fishing seemingly better and better grade of fish closer to a gazillion seals/sea lions?

'Cause they know something you don't know. 

Rich,
1st; welcome back. you're hardly a newbie here.

2;bout time you went fishing again

3; one of these days............

It's possible I'm dealing with a fish common name also but we have a protected species off our coast (San Diego) that we call Giant Black Sea Bass.  They live a long time but apparently reproduce, grow and mature very slowly.  Obviously, we're dealing with different fish but does this species (Giant Black Sea Bass) frequent the north coast?

It's possible I'm dealing with a fish common name also but we have a protected species off our coast (San Diego) that we call Giant Black Sea Bass.  They live a long time but apparently reproduce, grow and mature very slowly.  Obviously, we're dealing with different fish but does this species (Giant Black Sea Bass) frequent the north coast?

This is the black sea bass I'm familiar with. I just call the ones up here rockfish. I was really confused when I moved up here from San Diego to hear that people catch and keep 6 or 7 black sea bass a day. 

It's possible I'm dealing with a fish common name also but we have a protected species off our coast (San Diego) that we call Giant Black Sea Bass.  They live a long time but apparently reproduce, grow and mature very slowly.  Obviously, we're dealing with different fish but does this species (Giant Black Sea Bass) frequent the north coast?

Generally they are just called "giant sea bass" and the farthest north they go is about San Francisco Bay.

Like most common names, black sea bass does seem to refer to many different species.  I believe black sea bass is a fairly common name in Southern California for giant sea bass.