A Southern California kayak fisherman caught his first-ever white seabass last Saturday and it turned out to be one of the largest ever landed.
Brian Beam, who was fishing with James Loud off Dana Point, tethered and boated the 80-pound seabass after a 45-minute fight off Dana Point.
Beam, 37, could not find a certified scale because of business closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, so he took the fish home and weighed it twice on his bathroom scale: 81 and 79 pounds, so he split the difference.
Western Outdoor News describes Beam’s catch as a kayak-fishing world record, besting a 75-pound white seabass caught by kayak-fishing pioneer Dennis Spike in 2000.
Perhaps more noteworthy, it’s less than four pounds shy of the all-tackle world record (83 pounds, 12 ounces), which has stood since 1953. If Beam could have found a scale while the fish was still fresh, it could have been much closer to the overall world record.
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“I’d never even seen one over three pounds before,“ Beam told For The Win Outdoors. “You can only imagine how I felt once I realized what it was.”
Beam and Loud had paddled for 30 minutes to green water beyond a red tide, and Beam hooked the 5-foot-long seabass after his first cast of a live sardine. It towed him a half-mile south before he reeled it into view.
“My initial reaction was slight panic,” Beam said. “The fish was sideways, which made it appear twice as big in the water. It looked bigger than my kayak and I still had no idea what it was, which added to the excitement.”
Beam added that a rush of adrenaline helped with the task of hoisting such a heavy fish onto his kayak, after tethering it with rope.
The angler has reached out to the International Game Fish Assn. in an attempt to get the weight of the fish certified, but said the excitement generated by his catch is more rewarding than a potential record.
In a Facebook post Wednesday he wrote, “It’s been incredible hearing stories of how this accomplishment helped reunite family and friends and even created a little excitement in the mist of a global pandemic when finding things to get excited hasn’t been that easy.
“It’s truly a remarkable accomplishment and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to achieve and share it.”
–Photos courtesy of James Loud