Marina Del Rey White Seabass Program

The Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program is working.?? OREHP is a partnership between Hubbs/Sea World, United Anglers, Calif. Dept of Fish and Game, and several recreational angling clubs in Southern California.?? Its purpose is to spawn, rear, and release White Seabass into the wild.?? Marina del Rey Anglers maintains one of twelve grow-out facilities that carefully nourish and care for the juvenile White Seabass.?? MDRA club members, all volunteers, maintain two grow-out pens, each holding between 3,000 and 4,000 juvenile fish.

The fish are spawned and reared at Hubbs/Sea World Hatchery in Carlsbad, California, then distributed to the grow-out facilities.?? The fish spend about six to eight months in grow-out facilities, where they grow from 3 inches to 10 or 12 inches, at which size they have an excellent chance of surviving in the natural, wild fishery.?? Each of the hatchery bred fish contains a microscopic, stainless steel tag, embedded in its cheek and inscribed with a number.?? The number is recorded and will reveal when the fish was spawned, to which grow-out facility it was transferred, and when it was released.???? Success of the program can be determined by compiling information from recovered, tagged fish.

The Ocean Resources Enhancement Program has spawned, reared and released over 1,350,000 White Seabass since its founding in 1994.?? The Marina del Rey grow-out facility has reared and released over 130,000 Juvenile white seabass in that time.?? Thanks to OHREP and the elimination of commercial gill-netting and long lining, which had decimated the Southern California White Seabass fishery, the number of White Seabass in the wild are returning to 1940 and 1950 levels.?? White Seabass of 25 to 35 pounds are frequently caught, and trophy fish in the 40 pound range are no longer a rarity.

URGENT CALL TO ALL ANGLERS:?? It is essential that recreational anglers remove the heads of every White Seabass caught, and turn them in to a WSB Head Collection Station.?? An angler turning in a head becomes eligible for a semi-annual drawing that pays $500 to the holder of the lucky number.?? There are head collection stations in most Southern California harbors.?? Landings and bait docks will accept heads, record the catch data, and send them on to the hatchery, qualifying the angler as a contender?? for the prize.

To join Marina Del Rey Anglers or to learn more about the White Seabass Program, contact Darrell Pickford at 310 633 1885 or dpickford@verizon.com, or Paul Simon at 310 995 2292.