Photo of the Week: February 06, 2012

Hi Gang!

 This week’s POTW is a shot from my home waters in southern California. It is a picture of a giant sea bass, Stereolepis gigas, a species also commonly referred to as the black sea bass and giant black sea bass. The photograph was created in a kelp forest at San Clemente Island, the southernmost of California’s eight Channel Islands. 

There is no doubting the fact that as adults these fish are indeed giants. They are known to grow to a whopping 7.4 feet, and the heaviest known individual tipped the scales at 563.5 pounds. You can just imagine what it might be like to turn around and see one of these monsters looking at you eyeball-to-eyeball. That’s exactly what happened to me when I captured this shot.

I certainly was not expecting to encounter a giant sea bass on that late afternoon dive. In fact, my camera was set up with a 50 mm macro lens. Our boat was anchored outside of the kelp, and I had just entered the forest on my way toward an inside reef when I turned around to make sure that I had not lost my dive buddy.

But instead of seeing my buddy, I saw this huge fish starring at me from only a couple of feet away. It was definitely time to start shooting 

In a perfect world I would have had a much wider lens, perhaps my Nikon 17 mm-to-55 mm zoom. But one thing I always try to remind myself of is that you can always wish for another lens when an opportunity is in front of you, but the best thing to do is to make a picture with the lens you have at the time. So I did.

I took a quick light meter reading, set my f/stop and strobe power, and began to shoot. The giant sea bass posed for at least a minute, probably longer. Then the fish turned and disappeared into the kelp forest as silently and quickly as when it first appeared.

Another great diving moment!

I always love seeing giant sea bass because they are such an iconic species in southern California water.  In the very early 1900’s giant sea bass were abundant in California, but by the early 1930’s very few were being caught by commercial fishermen. Sadly, their demise was another case of overfishing, a combination of commercial, sport and spear fishing.

Lucky me, I saw my first giant sea bass during a squid run in 1975 the first year I moved to California. I’ll never forget that dive. It was a night dive, and I had never seen a fish the size of a small Volkswagen until one appeared in my face just like the one in the kelp forest. I was new to California, and I thought sightings like that probably occurred on a regular basis. But it was almost 15 years before I saw my second giant sea bass.

In fact, giant sea bass had become so rare that in 1981 the California legislature banned both the commercial and recreational take of the species. It was feared that the protection was a case of too little too late. But there is good news. The giant sea bass population is definitely bouncing back. While their numbers are not what they were during the early part of the last century, the species has definitely rebounded. Today, while sightings are not common, they are far more common than they were fifteen or twenty years ago, and there are some specific dive sites where you have a reasonably good chance of seeing a giant sea bass during certain times of the year.

It just feels good to be able to write a story that looks like it can, and will, have a happy ending!

I hope you enjoy this week’s POTW and the story behind the shot!

See you next week,

Marty