An amateur fisherman landed a monstrous, five-foot-long black sea bass at the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach last weekend, but this weekend he could find himself landing in jail.
Angler Jon Apothaker hooked and landed the huge catch Jan. 3, attracting a crowd of spectators, video exposure on the Internet and now, the California Department of Fish and Game. Why? Because the Black sea bass is an endangered species protected by the State of California.
Now, the fisherman is facing up to $1,000 fine and six months in jail for reeling in the catch.
The hour-long struggle with the fish drew a crowd of 40 or 50 people according to Apotheker, and ended when his line snapped. He was using steel fishing wire in hopes of catching a shark.
A passing boat hooked the fish, which was floating and seemingly lifeless, and brought it close enough to the shore for Apotheker to swim out and retrieve it. As he wrestled the still-breathing fish ashore, a passerby told him it might be a protected species, Apothaker told the Daily Pilot.
The angler claims that once he found out that the fish was a protected species, he did everything in his power to revive the fish, which was covered in a thick slime and weighed about as much as an adult human. A man on the beach let him use a pair of pliers to remove the hook, and a young girl with a bucket ran back and forth from the surf with buckets of water to pour over the bass' gills, the newspaper reported.
“In hindsight, I probably would do everything to save the fish again, but I would not bring it to shore,” Apothaker said to the Daily Pilot. "Even if the fish is dying on the surface and has hooks in it, it's best to leave it there to die. Once the sea bass hits the sand, it becomes illegal."
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Apothaker and a surfer spent the next 45 minutes in the water trying to get the fish to swim on its own. Eventually, the fish drunkenly swam off at a 45-degree angle. When he got back on the sand, the police were waiting to question him about the catch.
The giant fish washed up dead on the shore Sunday, according to Newport Beach Animal Control.
"If we find there is a violation, then we will forward it to the district attorney's office," California Department of Fish and Game Lt. Dan Sforza told the Daily Pilot. "If caught, the law requires you to immediately release them."
Apotheker said he didn't realize that it was a protected species and that he was just thinking, “Gee, that would have been a lot of fish tacos.”
