Calico Bass

Calico bass are probably my favorite saltwater fish of all, they look just like a freshwater bass, can be caught on all the same lures, are strong fighters and taste great! Back in the late sixties and early seventy's the calicos were caught by the thousands during the spring to fall time period, by party boats and small boat anglers.

I had my introduction to the calico on my uncle Ed's boat in 1962, when my family came to California to visit my moms sister. Uncle Ed was married to my Dad's sister and was an awesome saltwater fisherman. He soon invited us to go fishing with him. He had what was at the time a state of the art island skiff. It was a wooden open skiff with twin fifty horsepower merc's. It had a trashcan bait tank that kept one scoop of anchovies alive for most of the day, though the bass at that time didn't care if the bait was dead or alive. Ed's boat made it to Catalina Island in about an hour and soon after arriving we were anchored in West Cove on the west end of the island.

There was kelp everywhere and the water was very clear, you could see the bottom in thirty feet of water. About half of the anchovies had perished on the trip over, and my Uncle fished most of the dead ones out of the bait tank and started tossing them out behind the boat and we watched them slowly sink in the clear water, suddenly hundreds of calicos came out of the kelp forests and started eating the chum my Uncle had thrown out. We quickly baited up with live anchovies and cast them out where the bass were feeding on the chum, instant hookups! We were catching two to four pound bass as fast as we could cast out a bait, boy, I was in heaven.

Then my Uncle picked up a eight foot heavy rod with much heavier line and cast out a large iron lure into a channel in the kelp, seconds later he was winding in a very large calico of six to eight pounds. He caught several more large bass in the next few minutes, then asked me if I would like to try it, would I like to try it? Hell yes, I would! My Uncle handed me the rod and I aimed a cast in the general direction he was casting and gave a mighty heave, and instantly got the mother of all backlashes. My Uncle laughed and laughed, and then put the rod away as it would take hours to get the backlash out. We fished for several more hours, and caught many, many calicos, most of which we let go. This was a concept I was unused to, In Georgia we kept all the fish we caught as the limits were very liberal, and letting fish go was new to me.

My Uncle explained that although there seamed to be unlimited amounts of fish there were much less than when he first started fishing twenty years ago. This always stuck with me, and I always let most of the fish I caught go to live and fight another day. Now I see the wisdom in my uncle's words as the calico bass stocks are down to twenty percent of what they were in the 60's, as are most of the other game fish stocks. The majority of the ten percenters ( the ten percent of the fishermen that catch ninety percent of the fish ) release most of the calicos they catch, at least all of the big ones.

Most of my regulars that fish with me regulary have been doing that for twenty five years, we keep several one to two pound calicos for a great tasting meal of fresh bass yuuummmmmmmmy! There are few fish that can match the mouth watering goodness of the calico bass.