I'm in a rush to get out the door to meet up with my old boss about a potential new job, so I'll make this relatively short.
I launched on Thursday from Dana Landing which is not my usual M.O. Wind was supposed to pick up around noon, so I decided to do a quick morning run. I heard of some big yellows and decided to make the run.
I caught a few dozen nice mackerel and ran to the grounds. I stopped to give the bait some fresh water and made a few casts with the weedless swimmies. I caught a couple of 13.5"-14"bass in about 50 casts and kept going to where I wanted to hit.
Got there and drifted live macks on the dropper loop. I kept having rockfish and small bass grab my baits with not a single good hit.
Making bait took up more of my time than I should have used, so I decided to head back and fish for halibut. I caught a turd roller, brown rockfish and a calico before getting my first real hit.
I was hoping it was a big hali, but it started thumping its tail on my line and running. I was in 50' of water, so I was guessing a BSB. It started towing me to slightly deeper water and I maxed the drag out to the 30# limit. The damn thing would not stop except to shake it's head a few times. I have to be honest, I was hoping it was a giant yellowtail or white sea bass, but I spent a lot of time holding onto the rod for dear life to think about it.
20 minutes into the battle and I could barely get off the bow of the boat to start the motor. I was afraid of having the rod get pulled out of my hands and I was so tired and thirsty by this point. I finally started the motor to get some line back, but it gave him a rest as well as me. I finally started to get him off the bottom when I saw a literal submarine under me! It's now 35 minutes into the fight and I'm back in 55 feet of water. The only time I've seen a BSB this size was when I was fishing with my buddy Roger 15 years ago in LJ and caught a couple of BSB from 150-200 pounds. I have him about 15' under the boat when I see a yellowish stringer? I hear a few bumps on my hull and look to see nothing. Them my line gets real heavy and quiet.
I look down to see a lobster buoy being tugged under water with my fish attached to him! I tried gaffing the lobster buoy line to get him unwrapped as he was only about 10' away, but the 60# was no match and he busted off in eye shot... I only had my phone to take pics, so I wasn't going to dangle it over the ocean while I was fighting him, but that was a legit fight I was stoked to get to see him. One more thing... I f@ckING HATE those lobster buoys!!!!!!
I tried for 5 or 6 more drifts after retying for only small scrape marks in the bait. I stopped one more place on the way in and caught about 6 calico rockfish on a small pile that I quickly released.
So, the day didn't go as planned, but now every muscle in my body is sore as well as muscles that I didn't know about. That thing kicked my ass!
That's it. No yellows, no white's... only a black.
Until next tide!
