White seabass

White seabass
Conservation status
	; Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Acanthuriformes
Family:	Sciaenidae
Genus:	Atractoscion
Species:	A. nobilis
Binomial name
	Atractoscion nobilis; (Ayres, 1860)

White seabass or white weakfish, Atractoscion nobilis, is a species of

Juneau, Alaska. They usually travel in schools over deep rocky bottoms (0–122 m) and in and out of kelp

beds.

Description

The body of the white seabass is elongate, and somewhat compressed. The head is pointed and slightly compressed. The mouth is large, with a row of small teeth in the roof; the lower jaw slightly projects. The color is bluish to gray above, with dark speckling, becoming silver below. The young have several dark vertical bars. The white seabass is closely related to the California corbina, but is the only California member of the croaker family to exceed 20 pounds in weight. The largest recorded specimen was over 5 feet, 93.1 pounds. They are most easily separated from other croakers by the presence of a ridge running the length of the belly. C The diet of white seabass includes fishes, especially

Pacific mackerel. At the minimum legal length of 28 inches, the average white seabass is about 5 years of age, weighs about 7.5 pounds and has been sexually mature for at least one spawning

season.

Fishing

White seabass are fished primarily with live

estuaries, and the second is that they are not easily recognized as white seabass by the average angler. Commonly, these young fish are mistakenly called "sea trout" because of their sleek profile and vertical bars or "parr marks".^{[citation needed}

] To add to the confusion, these bars fade as the fish grows.

In California, there is a minimum 28 inch size limit and current fishing regulations should be checked concerning bag limits.

References

Much of this article is copied from California Marine Sportfish by the California Department of Fish and Game, Marine Region; a public domain resource.[1]
Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.) (2006). "Atractoscion nobilis" in FishBase. 5 2006 version.
World Record Information taken from http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1748238.php

External links

Santa Barbara Sea - A non-profit organization dedicated to restoring the White Seabass' population in the California Bight.
White Seabass Fishing Guide