OK, what kind of fish is this?
 

Are they good eaten?

http://i947.photobucket.com/albums/a...le/pics002.jpg

That my friend is one of my favorite quarries, Black Sea Bass.
It is also one of the best table fare fish you can eat.
Looks to be just about keeper size.

Thanks Willy,

I just looked it up. 12.5 inches. It was definitely bigger than that as I was thinking 16 (but that was head to tippy tail). I should have kept more...

I wonder than what those other black fish I was catching last year were.:head:

Ok, so I went fishing today. Landed a handfull of non keeper stripers, a bunch of small tautogs (no keepers)...otherwise it was a "nice", windy, choppy, misty, cloudy cool day out there...stills tons of other boats out there too.

rkc

Wow---here is what our Black sea bass look like on the west coast.

Hey RKC. it was me that chatted with you at the ramp this morning. nice looking v you have there :beer: today was opening day for sea bass, 14in minimum size and 10 fish a day. I cant believe you only got short stripers over on the side you were on. I fished across the canal and there were some real hogs over there. where did you end up going for the tautog and sea bass? if i had known it was you i would have been a little more helpful, sorry. im usually pretty tight lipped on the water about what im doing and where im doing it.

Just went to Cleveland ledge. There was probably 2dozen boats there. I guesss I need to look at this years regulations. Not sure when I will get to go out again.

You will like eating them a lot, they are structure based fish and love rock piles, wrecks, jetty walls etc.
Our friend out west is showing some sea bass on the outer edge of size you will see, those are beauts.
A lot of fellows here will go after them when they are in over fluke.

BSB are off limits down here, back in the day people considered them trash fish, I'd tell them I'd gladly take that trash off their hands. They are some of the best eating fish you will ever have.

not only are they excellent table fare but they are easy as hell to catch. we anchor up on the edge of rockaway reef in about 40 feet of water and tie a double dropper and put a couple squid rings. pull up double headers until it becomes a pain in the a$$. maybe one keeper every 30 fish or so but we catch somewhere around 60 to 80 fish an hour.

I have to guess that the west coast black sea bass are a different species than ours. Those look a lot like a fresh water bass that has adapted to saltwater.

I wonder if they are as good to eat? Our local black sea bass are yummy! And yes, pretty easy to find. Sometimes you can't get away for the darn things.

I also think there are pretty cool looking. Especially when they get a little bigger. The colors they can get with the whiteish/blueish spots, and the long tendril on the tail.