Quote:
Originally Posted by MITCHELL
Those are some big thresher you caught that one looks close to three hundred. Im still going on my first, but I have lost a bunch. The first one I lost was in my 16ft tuna chaser. I had a home made downrigger, made with a boat wench and a big cannon ball.i was using steel leader.but it didn't stay on, I could see it's tail in my wake.
Another one I lost i was in my kayak, in la Jolla. I had a top shot of mono on my reel because I just finished tuna fishing on a sport boat, big mistake. Anyway it picked  up a a slow trolled mackerel and started to peel line off I adjusted my drag accordingly to the sled ride.I think it said no f......way am I pulling some dude around that weights 265lb because it doubled back under my kayak, I could see it bigger than Dallas, silver purple and that long tail 10 feet under my kayak, and circled around in front of me, tail bitch slapping me until the line broke.i no I hooked more but can't remember. I have caught hammerheads Makos and soup fins from my yak.and that is plural in all three , but only keeping one Mako.
I don't no why but this kind of feels like im writing my own eulogy must be the cancer thing live like your dying  |
Good eye..
The ones on the skiff are smaller ones around 12' 6" 200lb, the big female on the dock was significantly larger, 14' 8" and it bottomed out a 300lb scale. I'd say 350+ It was as big around as a trash can.
I've caught more Mako's then I could count, but that large T was my first one. I caught it while trolling a home made jig that I made for makos, on a 30-50 hand wrapped Calstar I'd just built with a TLD25 filled with straight 40 pound mono. I kid you not it was my first fish on that rod and reel. When I hooked it I was just outside the 270 spot, in the middle of the shipping channel, and it sounded all the line off the reel straight down as soon as it hooked up.
I'd heard they could empty reels like that, but I'd never seen anything like it. I locked up the reel with a few wraps left and my buddy grabbed another heavier rig, the idea being we'd attach it's line to my reel and just toss my rig overboard. While he was setting that up the line kept stretching on mine like a huge 450 yard rubber band, but by the time he was ready the fish had turned and we noticed that the line was no longer pointing straight down. I gained maybe half the line back but the line was still down at maybe at a 45 degree angle when it jumped the first time maybe 50 yards right in front of us.
It was our first look at the fish. It was broadside to us, mouth hooked fish, and it came up and out then back in again in a huge perfect arc, as clean as a porpoise, traveling maybe three body full lengths through the air and landing back in head first. It was moving so fast and so big I could not even comprehend that it was actually on my line.
Epic fish battle, like hard to believe. It took almost an hour to get it to the boat on 40. Most of the time I was on the bow while we chased it. At one point it passed right under me while I was on our bow sprit just a few feet down. My buddy yelled: "How big is it?" The span across the pecs from tip to tip was over seven feet, I just told him" "It's too BIG!!", "We'll never get it!!", but it kept circling around us, and finally Mike just powered up the boat and ran us right on top of it and he manged to stick it with our fly gaff. We could not even get it in the boat but had to tie it along side and tow it in.
In total we probably followed it at least five miles. They say swords fight harder but it really worked me on that gear. I'll never forget it.
