Before more winter storms move in, we have a fun opportunity to catch one of the best-tasting and easiest to catch fish in the sea — sanddabs.
Some of our normally popular fish are out of season during the winter months, but we have this one delicious exception.
Have you tried them in restaurants or in your own kitchen? You should. They put halibut to shame, my own taste buds testify. They are related, and adult sanddabs look like baby halibut, though fully grown.
We have more sanddabs in our local waters than you can shake a fishing rod at. And they are always dependably hungry.
On a sanddab charter I recall one of my enthusiastic passengers describing it, “You just sorta watch for a wiggle on your rod tip. Then wait for a second wiggle and reel up two of the tastiest little critters you’ll ever meet.
“Once at home, fry ’em quick-like in peanut oil, and there’s nuthun’ like ’em!”
I’ve also experimented with sesame seed oil, grape seed oil, and of course real butter, and I haven’t had a bad sanddab yet.
The only risk is over cooking. About 30 seconds on each side, for a medium size sanddab, will cook it to perfection.
Finding sanddabs can be tricky because they do not register on a fishfinder. You are fishing by trial and error, though if sanddabs are in the spot you are trying, you will know it very quickly because they are voracious and competitive feeders.
Once you find one, you have probably found all you’ll need, since they seem to congregate in the thousands. I find them on mixed mud and sand bottom in 150 to 300 feet.
Some of my own favorite places are off the backside of Anacapa Island, outside the oil rigs off Santa Barbara and off Ellwood.
Rigging and baiting are simple enough. Tie up a double dropper loop, bait it with three-inch strips of squid and drop the leader to the bottom.
These fish hang out right on the bottom to ambush their prey, so keep the weight touching the bottom.
A 10-inch sanddab is a big fish. Seven or eight inches is more the norm. When really small ones — say four to six inches — come up, they are quite easy to release.
Sanddabs do not have air bladders, so they do not suffer from barotrauma when brought up from deep water. Just carefully remove the hook and put them back in the water with a minimum of handling.
They usually swim away unhurt, and that is gratifying. Put the keepers in cool water in a fish box, or on ice. Never put them in a gunny sack in the sun. That ruins fish flesh in a hurry.
