Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas

Note:  This Species is currently considered to be ENDANGERED and if encountered should be handled accordingly.

Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas. Fish provided by commercial fishermen of the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, June 2009. Length: 38 cm (15 inches). Identification courtesy of H.J. Walker, Jr., Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California.

Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas. Commercial fish being offered for sale by Fresko, San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, November 2019. Length: 45 cm (18 inches). Weight: 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs).

Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas.  Fish caught in coastal waters off  Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos, Baja California Sur, October 2017. Length: 73 cm (2 feet 5 inches).

Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas. Fish caught off the Golden Reef, 22 miles east of Puertecitos, Baja California, January 2014, with Captain José Maria (Joe) Valdez Morales. Length: 1.02 m (3 feet 1 inches). Weight: 13.9 kg (30 lbs 10 oz). Catch and photograph courtesy of Genaro Calderon, Mexicali, Baja California.

Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas. The town mascot of Puerto Adolfo Lopez Mateos, Baja California Sur, prominently displayed in a local restaurant. Caught “inside” Magdalena Bay in 2004.  Length: ca. 2.5 m (8 feet). Weight: 335 kg (737 lbs).

Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas. Underwater photographs taken in coastal waters off San Clemente Island, California, July 2019. Photographs and identification courtesy of Bob Hillis, Ivins, Utah.

The Giant Sea Bass, Stereolepis gigas, is a member of the Seabass and Wreckfish or Polyprionidae Family, that is also known as the Black Sea Bass and in Mexico as pescara. Globally, there are three species in the genus Stereolepis, and only this species is found in Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The Giant Sea Bass has a robust oblong body and have a depth that is 38 to 42% of standard length. Juveniles are brightly colored orange with large black spots. As the fish mature and get larger and darker, their orange coloration changes to a bronze-purple hue and their spots fade. Large adults are grayish black with a white underside. These fish have the ability to make rapid and dramatic color changes; large fish can display large black spots, take on a bicolor appearance (light below, dark above), assume white mottling, or simply change from jet black to light gray. Their anal, caudal, and dorsal fins are dark with clear margins, their pectoral fins are clear, and their pelvic fins are black. They have a large mouth with small teeth and a serrated gill cover with 1 or 2 spines. Their anal fins have 3 spines and 8 to 10 rays; their caudal fin is straight; their first dorsal fin has 11 or 12 spines; their second dorsal fin has 9 to 12 rays; and, their pelvic fins are larger than their pectoral fins. Their anal and dorsal fins are mirror images of each other. They are covered with small scales.

The Giant Sea Bass is found at depths between 30 m (100 feet) and 46 m (150 feet) within rocky structures adjacent to kelp beds. They reach a maximum of 2.24 m (7 feet 4 inches) in length. As of January 1, 2023, the International Game Fish Association world record stood at 256 kg (564 lbs) with the fish caught in coastal waters off Anacapa Island, California in August 1968. They are a deep-water fish found demersal in caves and within shipwrecks and in small schools. They prey on stingrays, skates, lobster, crabs, various flatfish, small sharks, mantis shrimp, blacksmith, ocean whitefish, red crab, sargo, sheephead, octopus, squid, kelp bass, and barred sand bass. They are not built for sustained speed, thus most of their prey is caught off the ocean bottom by the vacuum produced when their huge mouth rapidly opens. Each female can lay up to 60.000.,000 eggs annually. The Giant Sea Bass is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.

The Giant Sea Bass is a resident of Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean but has a limited distribution being found only along the entire west coast of Baja and in the northern half of the Sea of Cortez.

The Giant Sea Bass can be confused with the Atlantic Giant Grouper, Epinephelus itajara (dorsal fin without notch; rounded caudal fin).

From a conservation perspective the Giant Sea Basses is currently considered to be ENDANGERED. They have a very limited distribution and a large size, and they aggregate during spawning season making them very vulnerable to all types of fishing pressure including spear fishing. They were strongly overfished with landing rates in Mexican waters decreasing from 363 tons per year in 1932 to 12 tons per year in 1980. They are a slow maturing fish that require regeneration times of seven to ten years. Without pressure they have a minimum population doubling time of more than fourteen years. California State Legislature banned both commercial and recreational fishing of the Giant Sea Bass in 1981 in response to the great decline in population. They also banned the inshore use of gill nets in California in 1990. It is currently believed that their population has now been stabilized.

Within the Baja the Giant Sea Bass can be found for sale in the major food markets and are considered an excellent food fish.  In contrast, the Fish and Game Department of the State of California has established a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail for anyone in possession of a Giant Sea Bass.