This trip has been in the making for several weeks. On Thanksgiving I went to a friends house and one of the guys I worked with earlier in the year was also there. He works up at the north end of the island now and told me about some Mako's they saw at a spot I had been wanting to get back to but wrote off due to the cold snaps.
he then shows me a still frame and video of the Mako's just 50 yrds off the seawall.
this was good news to me since I figured the place had been infested with whites by now and if I was going to tangle with them again I wanted my team to be with me and in top shape, plus my gear wasn't up to the task after having my 80W spooled earlier in the year.
so we talk through a game plan and decide to do a recon of the area. Our recon consisted of walking the breakwall with two rods. A heavy jig rod and a light jig rod. the heavy jig rod was for probing the bottom and counting depth and be on stand by when the yellowfin showed up while the light jig rod was to see what kind of baitfish were around, if any. We mapped out the bottom pretty well and figured out where the drop off was and reefs and where we had a clear line to run baits. pretty much we had the whole area to fish and we would be dropping in 30, 45-50 and 90 ft of water.
a few weeks go by and I start stocking up on bait. a skipjack here, YFT there, get a nice Spanish mack. about 20lbs and throw it in the freezer, then I snag a turkey platter size sting ray and toss it in the freezer. Then the weather hits and knocks us out of commission for two weekends in a row. Finally I was able to get out there on the 19th and fish till the 20th.
I make the drive and pick him up, load up his kayak and gear and then we head off in the opposite direction to the spot. He brings a couple small set ups to play with baitfish and tachi and I packed the Everol 14/0 and Makaria 80W.
we get to the harbor near the breakwall and start unloading. After a little negotiation we have the kayak in the water and packed with gear ready to go!
so Off goes Josh with the first run of gear and I go on foot to meet him at the end and lower the ropes to hoist it up.
we make it out to the end, unload and get settled. I was initially going to run the Spanish mack whole on my Everol 14/0 and run the ray on my Makaira 80W but the ray was still frozen solid so I opted to cut the Spanish mack for both rods. the 14/0 took the front 2/3rds with a quick rig Charlie brown 24/0 circle hook and the Mak got the rear 1/3 with a Charlie brown 22/0 circle.
I set up an ice chest as a rod lean and leash the rods to the pole of the marker light on the end of the break wall and then set the baits. the 80W went out to sea about 60 yards and the 14/0 went on the inside of the breakwall about 80-90 yards. while I was running baits a commercial boat came in and hugged the wall and then turned out when it saw me in the bright red yak. The captain saw what we were doing and I figured he would steer clear if he came back out. well on his way back out he purposely hugged the wall even tighter and stared up at us while he drove by. luckily I saw him coming and had no trust in him so I dropped the lines and the mono sunk deep enough to dodge his propeller.
Baits are set now and Josh has the grill going. I brought some brats and he brought steaks! we start off the with brats and have a nice dinner while we wait.
7:30 pm rolls around and its getting chilly and I came with very low expectations so I roll out the standard issue ISO matt and sleeping system and shimmy on in. Josh asks if i'm going to sleep and I reply with "nope, just hanging out"... which was bullsh!t because I was asleep by 8pm.
9:30pm and I'm awake. that was a nice little nap. I told josh earlier that I wanted to run the ray at 10pm and it was fully thawed now.
9:55pm... ok its cold, ill let the baits soak. Josh and I are in our bags and BSing while the wind howls and the rain clouds move in.
about midnight we see the rain coming across the water, lit up by the moon light it looks like a sparkling fog bank... sweeeeettttt..... were going to get wet. we get all our stuff in dry bags and stuff Misc. in coolers to keep them from getting soaked and then button up in the bivvy sacks... 20 mins goes by and all we felt were several basketball size rain drops hit us and that was it. Josh braves the unknown first and pokes his head out and gives the all clear. no rain clouds and the moon is shining bright, at least all half of it is anyways.
Josh asks me what time it is... "12:40..." I say. "I'm going to check that bait and switch it out around 4 so they're fresh for the sunrise". I lay back down and I swear it felt like I dozed off and slept for a few hours before I heard the clicker but no more than 15 mins later....
ZZZZZZ..... ZZZ.... its got my attention and I'm looking around in disbelief. zzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
OH sh!t! "WE'RE BIT!" I yell as I stumble and trip out of my bag and run towards the rods. I can't even make out which one is going off over the howling of the wind. I get up on them and literally stick my head down between them and recognize the Makaira's clicker. unleash it and let it run a few seconds while Josh catches his bearing and tries to help me get the harness on.
after some fumbling and blinding each other with headlamps I decide I can't let the fish run any long and button down the drag. It comes tight...real tight! it pulls drag! we just set the strike at 42lbs before running baits and this fish is pulling drag!
SLACK!.........."sh!t!" *SPLASH IN THE DISTANCE* LINES TIGHT... "its jumping I yell to Josh.... it jumps several times and each time I either have to reel like hell to catch up to it or hold on and try not to fall off the wall as it peels drag.
It jumps again.. my rod tip is high. it surges and no line is peeled but its a hard run. the line wraped around the tip and my rod tip is forced down onto the edge of the wall... snapped the roller tip off about an inch below it...
we finally get the harness situation figured out and now I can put some pressure on this fish. I'm sure its a Mako by now and have every intention of putting its ass in the cooler... or coolers.
Finally the fish is at the wall and we can see the swivel to my shock leader. as it comes up josh yells out "its a white!".... great... just what we need to deal with, releasing a white on the ladder or rocks.
Soon after he says "I don't know what it is"... so I shimmy up to the side and glance over and I see a giant sand bar at the surface... "That's an 8ft sand bar" I think to myself... wow. and what the hell? I tell Josh to grab the tail rope. He gets it and I clip the D ring onto my shock leader and cut the main line. forgetting my tip broke, when I cut the line the roller tip slid off and into the drink... only made things better.
Josh managed to snap a pic when I took the leader.
I start walking her down the front side of the wall to the jax (what they use here in place of rocks are big cements jacks) and realize that they are too large and steep to get down on but the other side has small jacks that are easy to maneuver on. so off we go, back to the end and around it and all the way inside to get to the small jacks.
finally there I pass off the leader and head down.
She's exhausted and wants to sink. I pulled her around as much as I could and she just kept sinking. there was no where to go to try to revive her and it dropped off to 15 ft about 5ft in front of us. I made the decision to keep her and had Josh disconnect the rope from the leader and pass it down. I got the tail rope on her and we hoisted her up on the ledge. Got some pics and measurements and then lowered her down and bleed and gutted her in the water.
when she first came to the rocks I realized she wasn't a sand bar but couldn't tell what she was. I kept thinking it's either a MONSTER black tip or a dusky but the dorsal is way to big. After some research and comparing pics I've come to the conclusion that she is a black tip and measured out at 243cm or 7ft 11.6 inches.
I got her bleed out and gutted and then we loaded her on the yak and I paddled her back to the harbor and we went to work. had her filleted and in a cooler in about an hour. took the spine and head and dropped it outside the harbor. Kept the jaws and fins for later.
Josh taking his turn on filet duty.
