There’s literally only been one sportboat looking around Catalina Island for white seabass early this season: the six-pack Options out of Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach. The looking paid off on Saturday, when it posted its first white seabass — and the first to get caught on a sportboat in 2010 — from Catalina.

“Well, persistence finally paid off… all the looking finally paid off. I said on the ride across that if we got one (white seabass) I’d be happy — we finally got a seabass after five trips to the island,” said Options skipper Tino Valantine on a call with WONews.com. He also said that squid continues to be as thick as mush on the frontside, and all the bait also turned up more than just the one seabass that hit the deck. “We had around 50 legal bass — most of it was better-grade bass in the dark — and we also lost a legal seabass right at the boat,” added Valantine.

The one seabass to hit the deck was hooked by Andrew Salinsky on a squid fished on a dropper loop on 50-pound test. The count also had a halibut in it to go with the seabass, 50 calico bass and 4 bonito. There was a big swell hitting the backside of Catalina last weekend, but the water temperatures are staying up in the high 50s, which bodes well for an early spring.

“There’s plenty of bait over there, that’s for sure. And the water never got cold this winter. It never got to 52, 53, or 54 degrees like it usually does in the winter,” added Valantine. “A lot of the spots I wanted to fish — like some of the beaches — were just getting pounded by the swell. Mill’s Landing had like 10-foot faces and offshore breeze,” Valantine added.

With the swell backing off and another week of good weather in the forecast, this might be the week that someone makes a big score at Catalina. Someone  has to. The Fred Hall Show is coming up. As most anglers know, someone always seems to make a big catch in the days leading up to the show.

FIRST SIX-PACK SEABASS OF 2010 — Options crewmember Andrew Salinsky hooked this 10-pound-class white seabass at Catalina last Saturday while on a “goof off” trip to Catalina. The school-sized seabass is the first of the year to get caught by a six-pack boat. There’s plenty of squid and water from the high 50s on up to 60 degrees at Catalina.