Long Loooong lonnnnnng day in newport

[smokehound]

Started the morning off at 32nd street jetty, but could hardly find any sandcrabs. Ended up with about ten okay sized crabs, but the beach was already crowded by then.


Left and hit up the channel and caught a nice sargo -- 14 inches. That was it.

sargo are tasty, but remember to limit meals of them, due to their nearly exclusive diet of bay mussels.

Ill add a pic of the sargo tomorrow.

Im so sunburned...

[Natural Lefty]

Smokehound, that's a good sized Sargo, bigger than any I have caught I think.

What's the deal with the Bay Mussels? Are they polluted? I know they can have toxins from bacteria during the warmer months, but I didn't know the toxins would transmit to fish that ate them, but perhaps they can.

I remember one time, my neighbor's husband was visiting his family in the bay area during Christmas, so we invited my neighbor Doreen over for Christmas, and we had Sargo for Christmas dinner. It was really cool. :Cool:

[smokehound]

The main concern is because the backbay is a natural storm drain.

BUT then again, i eat fish from the bay all the time, been doing so for a decade, spotted bass, sargo, croakers, no ill effects so far.

The larger sargo put up terrific fights, this piggie made my reel scream "RAPE!".


Sargo are delicious.. Like croaker, but better. Well except for corbina, those are called kingfish for a reason. =P

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c177/smokehound/DSC01566.jpg
The angle sucks, but this was a fatty.

[Natural Lefty]

Smokehound, that is a big Sargo. I'm impressed.

I know Newport is like a stormdrain. That is one reason I have never really eaten anything from there, but I know the warnings about eating fish are usually exaggerated. They used to have warnnings on fish from the Salton Sea, but now that there are only Tilapia there, they retested and said it's really clean except for somewhat elevated natural selenium levels.

I thought Kingfish was a nickname for White Croaker, not Corbina. It's the White Croaker I've eaten that weren't so good to eat, anyway (plus pollution). The few Corbina I have eaten were really good, Sargo too.:Smile:

[smokehound]

That is very true about the warnings. The only reason i worry about sargo is because they eat ALOT of the mussels.

The whole red zone, yellow zone thing is BS. The main thing that tipped me off was the fact that they said not to eat topsmelt in the red zone, yet jacksmelt were fine?

Exaggerated indeed. :D