Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Sammons LJKF
Just remember guys this is a kayak fishing forum not a skiff fishing forum and fighting a fish from a kayak is way different than the much higher weight of a skiff. You can land pretty much as big a fish as you want in a kayak with a TLD15 LD. ......
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Great stuff Jim. I agree with you. Most people only know one thing or one way to fish. The deal is Offshore inshore, boats kayaks etc.. all have their unique tackle demands, one size really doesn't fit all
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I'd add something you may not have considered to that. Personally I'd say that the largest tackle issue you face with really large threshers is when they die on the line.
I had a good friend that got a 400+ fish a while back that was tail hooked and died. Initially as it sank he thought it was still alive and just taking drag, but eventually he realized it was dead and that they'd have to lift it's 400+ pounds back to the surface with his eighty pound gear. With him working the rod and another guy at the rail lifting hand over hand it took them several grueling hours to get it up to the boat. Then they had to tie it off, take it in and clean the thing.
He told me if he had to do it over again he would of stayed home.
I don't think there would be any way to get a fish like that back to the surface without heavy gear that could actually winch them up, and I don't see how you could utilize such gear effectively from a kayak. Perhaps towing a kayak she might of never sounded and died, who knows.
If a fish is hooked in the mouth, and stays up top I think you'd have a good chance even thirty pound, but if a huge one sounds and dies on lighter gear it's a waste of flesh because you just can't lift them back up.
My take is if I kill it I have to utilize it. so I now use the heavy gear from my skiff now precisely because it can lift a dead one back to the surface. I fish alone, I don't have a deckhand to hand line a dead fish for me. To me it's just part of the game. I need to have a reel that gears down low enough, with strong enough line to dead lift a huge fish. It's just a given.
I did not always see it that way. I fished Makos first and with them you can fish much lighter gear. I did not say it earlier but my largest T was caught on a TLD25 filled with straight forty mono, my standard Mako gear back in the day. I was actually fishing for Makos when I hooked it, and I managed to get it, but that fish was mouth hooked, and came back up to the top, so it was really only luck and great boat handling from my buddy, that allowed me to get her.
Now I know enough to leave that gear at home when the bigger T's are around. After fishing them enough and seeing the various things that can go wrong, and the number of them that fight themselves to death, I now feel fishing with that light of gear is irresponsible. I kill I keep it's the bottom line.
That's actually kinda the problem I have with the article linked to in the thread. Ron's not talking about fishing them in kayaks, he's talking about fishing them in boats, and unfortunately he's generalizing that gear used to fish small inshore Ts will actually work for offshore fish. Inshore you can utilize lighter tackle because they can't sound deep. It's just not the case for bigger fish offshore.
At any rate thanks for your well reasoned response and perspective. Great stuff as always. Hey and if you ever want to go for some real monster Ts maybe we can rig up a support boat and chase some down for you.
Jim