BSB at DP: 8-29-21
 

Got a bit of a surprise while fishing out of Dana Point on Sunday...

Launched baby beach just before sunrise. Got bait- dudes at the dock were cool and squeezed me in before 2 loaded charters. Made our way out to the drop-off. Wind was already on it a bit. Trolled a sardine on a Carolina setup while dropping a jig on any deeper marks that I saw, which produced a couple of sandies early on. But out in deeper water, I couldn't get the jig halfway through the water column without a greenback taking it. As the saying goes, "When life gives you greenbacks, pin 'em on your line and send 'em out!" So that's what I did- one on the flyline, one on the Carolina to cover my bases.

Fought the current for a while. It was not very nice out. Spotted birds going crazy close to us. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't praying for one of those near-shore tuna boils to pop up... But it turned out to be dolphins/porpoise crashing on bait. Eventually they moved on, but a few minutes later my Speedmaster started screaming behind me. Grabbed it, put it in gear and started fighting. Could tell right away it was something big. After a good fight, I finally got it to color and saw it was a fat Black Sea Bass. Had a lot of fight left when it was at the side of the kayak, so getting the hook out was a bit of a struggle. But after a couple pictures, I was able to get the hook out and it swam away strong. I've caught a fair amount of these before, but nothing quite this size. And I was more than surprised to catch it where I did in Dana Point! So while I really hoped to see a nice halibut or WSB come up, it was still an awesome experience. (I did get some GoPro video of the whole thing, so I'll post that eventually)

After that, I sent out 2 fresh greenbacks and started working my way in. At one point some idiot in a flybridge got within about 20' of running me over. Once I realized I was not going to get killed, I tried to reel at least one of my lines in, but this guy just ran right over the top of both of them and started spooling them. Fortunately the lines both got cut by the prop after about 4-5 seconds, so I didn't loose too much braid. Didn't get video of that, but there would have been too much "Inappropriate Language" for me to post on YouTube anyway... After that, conditions just got terrible, so we headed in. I did get a decent bonus calico on the jig when I saw some mark though.

Anyway, here are some pics. Enjoy!

Nice pics!!

That's just a very dark white seabass.

Thanks!

I don't think the DFW would fall for that... lol

Time on the water and a little luck!

Nice work, one day those might be legal again!

Looks like a pretty rad day. As always I enjoy the photography and as a side note I am diggin that pirate flag!

Wow, nice looking BSB! Thanks for the report.

Wow, nice fish!

Incredible! That's a fish of a lifetime. Nice job on the quick release.

Thanks! If they ever do become legal some day, I can all but guarantee one will never bite my line again lol

Minus the almost getting run over part, it was awesome! And the flag is from Haggard Pirate. They sell pretty cool stuff, worth checking out :cheers1:

Thanks man! Hope all is well for you out on the East Coast with all the storms we've been hearing about.

Thanks!

It was pretty wild. The release was definitely not as smooth as I would have liked. There was an incident where I thought the fish was done fighting and went to grab the hook and he made a big dive. Fortunately I was super quick to drop the line and grab the rod before the slack line was gone. Didn't have the drag locked down all the way, but I didn't want to find out the hard way that it was still too tight and have it flip me(Chris Belvins, you here??? Need to thank you for your BSB video I literally just watched a couple days prior!!)

Nice fish, I've also caught quite a few at Dana Point, not that big though, good job..