Searching for the elusive ‘ghosts’ in San Francisco Bay with ‘The Ghost Whisperer’

Wang and Koyasako go back over 30 years as deckhands on the original Nautilus 1 and Nautilus 2, and they are currently readying the big party boat, the Ultra, for local and long-range trips out of Emeryville. Wang, like myself, is a native of Stockton, and we found many common threads in our upbringing.

Once the fish are located, it is a matter of setting down an anchovy on a live bait rig with the leader composed of 20- to 25-pound fluorocarbon. Most ‘ghost hunters’ use live or fresh-dead squid for the seabass, but inside the bay, the bass are feeding on a combination of anchovies and ghost shrimp. Koyasako said, “If we dropped down to 15-pound fluorocarbon, we would hook a higher ratio of fish, but the light line makes it very difficult to bring them to the gaff as they have extremely sharp teeth and a very hard gill plate.

After going through a number of anchovies on the small rockfish, the main attraction finally arrived once the tide was moving. Koyasako had made several moves, resetting the anchor each time, and he said, “Get ready, there is a school 35 feet thick coming through.” Just as the words came out of his mouth, Beard and Nguyen hooked up on the starboard side with Slate on the hook at the transom. Teamwork is essential as the sea bass pull hard and will run you around the boat.

Since they seem to all go on the bite at the same time, it is a matter of keeping the remaining rods in the water while working together to go over and under while following your fish. Nguyen handed off the rod to me, saying, “All I am interested in is gaffing the fish.” After a bit of a dance and many long runs, I was able to bring my first sea bass to the gaff. We landed all three on that flurry, and we picked at them for a bit with Slate and Beard striking again with their second fish until the tide went slack.

During the slack tide, not even the Bolinas cod were willing to bite. Koyasko made a few more moves, and finally the incoming tide started to push current back into the bay. It was time for the sequel of the early pandemonium to begin, and it started similar to the first round with Koyasako saying once again, “Get ready, there are fish all over the place.” This time my rod went off, and the fish decided to make a run around the bow. As my nimblest days have vacated long ago, Nguyen hopped on the bow and brought the fish around to the starboard side for me to pick up where we left off. While I was concentrating on getting this bass to the boat in spite of its efforts to keep running, the other rods were going off.

Patience is one key to success in the seabass game, and even an experienced captain such as Slate said, “I was so impressed with your ability to stick with the game plan as I would have abandoned this long ago with the lulls in the action.” Within the past three years, Koyasako has close to perfected his techniques after the seabass made a reappearance in the bay. He said, “The fish we caught today were less than the 28-inch minimum a few years ago, and although I have been studying their habits, there is so much I have yet to learn.”

He has learned quite a bit as he has put his clients onto as many as 18 seabass on recent trips, and we decided to call it an early day with 10 bass to 30 pounds in the box along with several other missed opportunities. The white seabass fishery in the bay can be overexploited by commercial fishing, and there have been reports of over 100 fish taken in a single day by the small commercial boats. Similar to white sturgeon and the big six- and seven-gill sharks in the bay, as more and more fishermen figure out how to increase their chances, there is a danger of excessive pressure on the species.

It was a spectacular day targeting a species I had only dreamed about, and the opportunity to bring three to the gaff is now one of the highlights that will stay in my memory bank.