Calico Bass

Calico bass, officially the kelp bass, are a stocky sea bass with a brown-to-olive back broken into a checkerboard of pale blotches and bars, a white belly and a large mouth lined with fine teeth. The dorsal fin is continuous with the third, fourth and fifth spines roughly equal in height, which separates them from the barred sand bass (whose third spine is much taller) and spotted sand bass (which is covered in small spots). Big fish turn dark and bronze and are called bull bass.

Kelp bass live only along the eastern Pacific from central California to central Baja California, and they are most abundant from Point Conception to Punta Abreojos, around all the Channel Islands and the Coronados. They are a true resident species that rarely moves more than a few miles, which made them vulnerable to overharvest and led California to tighten the size and bag limits in 2013.

Calicos are ambush predators that hold in and around kelp stalks, boiler rocks, breakwater boulders and the shadows of docks and moorings, darting out to take anchovies, sardines, squid, small perch and crabs. They feed most actively at dawn and dusk and on moving tides, and they come to the surface to chase bait when conditions are right. Spawning runs from late spring through summer in water around 62–70°F (17–21°C), when the biggest fish gather on the outside kelp edges.

For anglers, calico bass are a year-round game from private boats, kayaks, sportboats and jetties. The modern swimbait and weedless-jig approach, borrowed from freshwater bass fishing, has turned calico fishing into a technical casting sport with tournaments and a release ethic for the big, slow-growing bulls, which can be 20 years old or more.