Big Mama
 

Fished from 2:00 AM to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comhttp://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/ /><st1:time alt=</st1:time>1:00 PM last Thursday. Lost 5 lures and burned through all my live and dead bait. Watched everyone and his/her mother catch WSB and a few YT in the early hours. Come 10:00 AM, my main fishing partner, Dennis, had already headed in with two trophies and I, feeling “unloved”, took to drifting and chatting with notorious late-riser and long-time friend, Rod.

While the word has been about an “early morning” bite, WSB and YT don’t wear watches, and as morning moved to mid-day, I hooked up with a huge YT that, after an eternity of smokin' runs, elected to head to the kelp and create macramé I couldn't untangle. As I head back to lament the loss to Rod, I watch him hook up and then land a nice WSB. While happy w/ his catch, his reel was a mess, and noting my having sacrificed all my metal to Poseidon, offered me his “lucky” blue & white while he attended to the bird’s nest in his hands. I took the lure, tied it on, dropped it down, drifted slightly away and at straight up noon ... game on!

Some fish can’t tell time, and others confuse the open sea with safety. In this case, the pictured gal failed on both counts, neglecting to check the clock and heading for deep blue rather than stringers of green. She nearly spooled me twice, but I found one of the great benefits of a narrow peddle boat is its ability to chase after one’s hooked quarry and, rather than being limited to fighting from a forward tow, decrease a big fish’s ability to gain line. In short, while keeping the pressure on, I peddled fast after her and took advantage of whatever opportunity arose to gain line. While it took longer than most, this WSB too came to lose her gas and had no option but to accept her fate. Once on the clip, she was bled, but proved too big to put forward or aft, so I cruised in w/ her strung across the boat under my legs as I peddled.

She was one huge fish, coming to tip the home scale at 52.5 lbs, and tape out at the same number of inches. As expected, she was full of eggs and had a stomach full of squid. A fish truly worth waiting for, and surprising to me both in her size and the time of day she chose to bite.


Avery

What a friggin pig, look at the squid gut on that thing.:cheers1:

Awesome report and story Avery!
way to hang in there and do the over time shift
she's a beaut
:cheers1:

Avery i think I met rod on the water two days later same time and he told me the story of this pig I kind of shrugged it off but now..........
What a pig, man gorgeous fish congrats..:cheers1:

Wow!

Good thing you didn't give up!

Smokin................great fish!!

GBF

That IS one big fat mama. Congratulations.

Nice one Old Timer:cheers1:

Fricken thing is massive!!!!

Good job!

well, pluck my fiddle! :D Fat, Fat, Fatty Fat!

DONK!!!:cheers1:

My GOD!

Sweet!

that's a fat one! very cool!

Wow, what patients you have. I would have tossed in the towel much earlier. Congrats on a monster of a fish.

Note to self, get the hell out there because if you don't have a line in the water you won't catch anything and be patient it will come!

Very nice Avery!:cheers1:

......Jenny Craig......



wow

:D

Wow...nearly 12 hours on the yak, you definitely were rewarded for your efforts...congrats, Big Mama indeed...:cheers1:

That is one massive mama! :eek: Great to see that hours on the water = :wsb:. :cheers1:

Well done Avery!

Beauty.

What a beast that fish is. :eek: There goes all your freezer space! Not only is that fish huge but take a look at that FF screen. HOLY CRAP!

:cheers1:

That's no fishfinder... It's a dvd player. Nice fish, Avery. I didn't believe you at first when you told me, because you're always messing around. That thing is fricken huge. Good thing I wasn't there when you caught that thing... I would have pushed you into the water and taken her.. ;)

Fatty! Great to see one of the old guard getting it done.

Nice Cow - Way to put in the overtime.:wsb:

Tanker! I wonder, if you're peddling forward to keep the fish from taking too much line, are you also reducing the amount of effort the fish is using to pull the kayak, prolonging the fight? Great fish, Avery!

Way to go Avery, by the way, if you hear from Tobey ask him to call me. 760.807.0623
rich

That one huge wild hog!!! I think I met you last year on the same bite, told me about yellow tail nuggets and I spotted you my smaller yt?????

Glad I Could Be of Service
 

That is a nice fish, but some times it pays to sleep in!.

Damn, Rod. That yellow is huge.. What did that thing weigh? It looks like the toads came out in the afternoon... No slam?

53.2 lb for the yt
 

Got those a few weeks back but I don't think I'd shared them with Avery. I did catch it later in the morning though. Heard you did ok at night.

53.2lb... TOAD! Avery and I headed out Thursday night.. Two bites, but nothing landed. The old man (Avery) goofed his shot..;). I have yet to break 50. Nice work on that thing, Rod.

"Goofed shot"
 

Oh young grasshopper ...

What to others may have appeard as a goofed gaff shot, was actually an orchestrated movement I learned directly from the world's most famous kayak angler. Indeed, as an orphaned lad of 2, I was adopted by a rogue band of Aleutions, raised on penguin beaks and blubber, and tutored in the angling arts by none other than Nanuk himself. While the story's long, I'll make it short and say I was the first relatively-white man to be initiated into an exclusive group of "fish whisperers". To the point, whether I wanted to or not, I spent hours, days and yes, years, working to perfect what is known in an Aleutian dialect as the wottaphuqup maneuver.

When performed by a master, wottaphuqup enables a fish to swim away unharmed, but upon fine inspection, shows that a needle-sharp gaff was swung in such a way as to pierce and separate "the line of death" in its exact middle. That said, I must admit that, like the fictional Zorro, I too choose to mark my quarry, however rather than leave my encountered with a minor flesh wound, purposely swing high so that there's a bit of "bling" to remind them of our chance meeting.

Young friend, I rejoice much in your catching of small fish. But know this. I will, from this time forward, rejoice even more when you too come to perform wottaphuqup like me.

Avery

Holy YT......:cheers1:

Now Avery, that there's over the top, well done. I might even be able to turn that tale into a folk tune

Nice WSB!
 

LOOKS LIKE SOME GREAT DINNER!

i caLL bs that pic looks like it was taken in the early 90's :D

Just the camera was from then
 

One of the old Sony waterproofs. Got to be old school. Moyer has some better picks of the yt.