anyone ever hook something they didnt want. ( lj 1 /12 )

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by TJones

i know how to adjust a Lever Drag on the fly after hooking something . it can only be done one way and on a boat . by taking 6 - 8 steps back from rail on BOAT , putting the real in neutral , doing your adjustment and putting the reel back in gear as you are moving forward . even this is highly risky . i didn't start fishing yesterday. and if you had ever had the experience of accidentally hooking a dolphin you would now all of the above occurred within minutes . not hours where i could debate on what to do . apparently you missed a couple parts of the article . (a) the part that stated i buttoned down the drag . (b) the part that said i almost flipped because i got turned sideways . and i am on a narrow yak . i have only been kayaking for 3 years , and this was like hooking a shark , a learning experience for me . i believe in GOD ,JESUS, and the HOLY SPIRIT. he holds all the keys to life and death . if the mammal dies he is watching and so be it. thank you for your opinion.

I want to apologize to you TJ.

Obviously you feel bad about what happened and I'll admit I was a little mad about the whole thing when I posted my post. I just edited it and took out the harsh parts that give you a hard time.

The other stuff is good info and it works.

I have hooked dolphins or more technically porpoises on three occasions. Twice in the same day fishing for Barracuda in Santa Monica Bay, and once fishing schooling bluefin tuna offshore south of the 425.

I completely understand what you are saying about time, and how fast it happens.

Nothing except maybe a Wahoo takes off that fast and unlike wahoo they head straight for the horizon.

That said the technique I described worked for me all three times.

A little background... My buddies and I came up with this system while surf fishing years ago for sharks in the four wheel drive only area at North Padre Island. We'd fish forty miles down the beach maybe sixty miles from the nearest road for a week at a time and and you only had the gear you carried in. We'd fish either wide Penn 4/0s with sixty dacron or a 9/0 with 80 Dacron. 99% of the sharks you'd hook could be landed on that gear, but every once in a while you'd hook a monster tiger or hammerhead that you just couldn't stop. We had the same issue. Can't follow them, and 60 or 80lbs Dacron is hard to break standing on a beach. If you let the shark go all the way down to the spool the line would snap at the reel, and you'd be screwed because lines expensive and we usually did not have much extra line with us on any given trip.

We finally figured out if you sat down on the beach, dug your feet in the sand then held the reel down low between your legs and thumbed the sides of the spool once the reel was almost empty we could break the shark off without loosing all our line. If we kept enough wraps on the spool to keep the spool knot safe I'd say well over 90% of the time the line broke right at the fish or within a few feet of it.

It should work just aas well form a yak as long as you keep the reel down low.... certainly not something you use every day but it's a good thing to know about and I strongly recommend it.

At any rate sorry I gave you a hard time. I'm sure you feel bad enough already. Try to take the positive out of it that I left and ignore the negative I removed.

You got better trips coming.

Tight lines, Jim