Poachers Greet Return of the Giant Sea Bass

Slow, silent, mopey, a giant sea bass brushes past, 450 pounds of curiosity. Then comes another, and another, like fish on an invisible string. Each has pursed pouty lips, a downturned mouth and an eye that rolls in its socket like a billiard ball as it takes your measure.

Giant sea bass, the lovable lugs of the fish kingdom, are back--to the delight of scuba divers.

For decades, divers thought these behemoths had been wiped out. Their numbers were depleted by commercial fishing in the 1930s. The few that remained were hunted as prized trophies until the state acted, seemingly too late, in 1982 and made it a misdemeanor to kill the fish.

Dozens have reappeared around the Channel Islands this year. Unfortunately, so have their chief predators: spear-slinging poachers.

The first wounded bass was spotted off Catalina in mid-June with a spear dangling from its flank. Then, another one was caught on videotape off Anacapa Island, a spear tip embedded in its head, dragging a steel cable and spear shaft behind it.

“It’s really disturbing to watch this big guy,” said Kathy deWet Oleson, who videotaped the injured fish. “As the shaft bumps along, it hits a rock and gets pushed back into the open wound. The pectoral fins beat against the shaft, unable to move.”

These wounded creatures have become poster children for a growing movement among scuba divers. More and more dive shops have either cut back or discontinued selling spear guns, as divers have become content to capture on film what they used to stuff and mount on the wall.

Even spearfishing enthusiasts are revolted by the idea of shooting one of these gentle giants.

“I consider these guys my friends,” said Geoff Todosiev, an avid spear fisherman from San Pedro. “They are very friendly. They come right up to you. To shoot one of these would be like going into a cow pasture and shooting a cow. There’s no sport in it.”

Bob Meistrell, another avid diver, was so incensed at the spearings that he posted a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone who kills a giant sea bass.

Wanted posters, complete with a color photo of a bass dragging a spear, have popped up in dive shops around Southern California.

“We’ve got to protect these fish for our grandchildren,” said Meistrell, co-founder of Body Glove International, a wetsuit manufacturer.

Another longtime diver, Jim Hall, who successfully lobbied Sacramento to protect the garibaldi, began complaining to officials about what he saw happening to the giant sea bass: “Every one of them has a spear hole in them,” Hall said. “Some of them look like the backside of the moon, they have so many craters in them.”

The outcry caught the attention of the state Department of Fish and Game. Lt. Chris Graff recently anchored his enforcement boat, the Thresher, on top of a popular Catalina dive site to inform people there about the $2,000 fine and possible jail time for killing a giant bass protected by state law.

“Either this person didn’t know what he was doing or he was like the kid who shoots a pretty bird on a telephone pole,” Graff said. “If your intent was to take a trophy, you couldn’t hide it in your boat. The fish is too big.”

Steve Madaras has been diving the waters off California since the 1960s, and he hadn’t seen a giant sea bass for years. So it thrilled this co-owner of Scuba Luv, a Catalina dive shop, when he spotted a pair in 1995, then a few more the next year, and still a few more the next.

As their numbers rebounded, Madaras couldn’t help but share his joy with other divers, who have been clamoring aboard his dive boat to swim with the big fish.

Word of the giant bass has quickly spread to other dive boats, and diving with them is one of the hottest attractions around Catalina.

Last Sunday, about 100 divers slipped into the murky depths to hang out with the big fish, which can live 80 to 100 years. The largest on record measured 7 1/2 feet long and weighed 563 pounds. Historically, the fish have been found in waters stretching from Humboldt Bay in Northern California to Baja California.

Unlike sharks, these silvery fish with black spots pose no threat to humans. They feed mostly on shrimp, lobster, rays and other small bottom fish. They congregate around the Channel Islands from April through October to spawn and then disappear each winter. No one knows where.

Madaras estimates about 30 giant bass now congregate on the sandy bottom and in the kelp beds off Catalina. “I caught 10 of them in the frame of one picture,” he said.

The fish have grown increasingly at ease in their encounters with strange creatures toting air tanks and blowing bubbles.

So Madaras was heartsick when he recently discovered one with a spear dangling from its belly. “Going down to shoot them,” he said, “is like shooting your dog when he comes to greet you.”