All Kayak Fishing Forums - Like Ice cube said "it was a good day..."

OK, take 2 on the long version of what happened.........Paddled on out with an extremely hung over and very pukey looking Rusty, I figured the day was going to be a good one as Rusty was making the sacrificial offering to the god's for us all! I figure it is alot like surfing, in the respect that the one way to gurantee good waves is for one of your crew to just get trashed the night before to the point of damn near death...and waalaa you have double overhead hollow waves...in this case we have iron yellow homeguards. As we paddled on out I ran into my brother-in-law and stopped to chat whilst he was busy playing with something on the other end of his line. Decided to stick around and drop the only iron I really ever use, the almighty Tady 4/O blue and white with a yellow mack trim pattern, I like this iron ALOT!. It is a slightly larger size than a salas 6x jr. and just a tad smaller then the 7xJr., this iron in particular has a great swimming motion to it and tends to routinely produce quality fish for me. After about a half hour of yo-yoing I feel a bump on the drop, i put it in gear por nada, I quickly put the reel in free spool again and quickly feel that THUMP, put the reel back in gear and WHAM I am ON!!!! Fish doesn't really take off but just sounds and goes deep and stays there he is taking line but it really is more of a standoff. I button down the drag and begin the pump action gaining a little line little by little, after about 5 minutes I get him to 60', then 50' then 100' again. Finally really put the screws to him, knowing that I have fairly new 40lb P-line and a super solid setup of a trinidad 20 mounted on a 700H calstar grafighter. Get him up and the gaff finds it's home, rip a gill and put the old boy down the hatch.

Continued to yo-yo the same area for another 2 hours for a few marks but not too much else going on. Finally decided to get a pic with the bro-in-law, so I throw the rod in a rod holder a crank or two off the bottom just letting the iron hang suspended via deadstick. I pull out my fish and get my camera ready to hand to T-Man, I bump his boat and then my bro-in-law bumps my boat and we all hear the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz of the clicker going with the rod in gear and see the rod super bendo! I quickly throw the camera in my pocket and set to go grab the rod out of the rodholder and quickly come to the realization that this is definitely a good grade of fish. Button down the drag and shut off the clicker and the fight begins in earnest! For the first 5 minutes of the fight I did not gain a single inch of line, just force the fish to pull me on an overtightened drag, I can feel the tail thumps and headshakes, it feels yellow, but damn it is not budging an inch off the bottom, black sea bass? Shark? Can't be? Finally start to gain some line back and another long period of time goes by get him up to 40' and back down to the bottom he goes, get him up to 30' and now I am starting to get near the kelp as Josh points out. Screw it, time to put the hammer down, quick pumps and thumb the spool, everything your not supposed to do . See a huge amount of bubbles and a giant tail!!! Oh it's a goodun fo' sho'! Get him up to the boat and sink the gaff under the head and this big ol' boy is doing his best to screw up my flow and shake loose, quickly put him on board and get a choke hold on his "throat" and rip a gill, I look down at the tail still hanging off the boat and quickly realize I have a new personal best!!! So happy and so stoked, super skinny and long fish, if his belly had been full I have a sneaky suspicion he could have been a bit heftier, either way totally stoked to have a 2 fish day!!! 70 pounds of fish is never a bad day by any means!! Thanks to all for the congrats on the water and off!!! GO GET YOURS and buy a Tady 4/0!!!!!

thanks for reading Matt F.