White Sea Bass at La Jolla 9-6-16

[FISH11]

Today I went out like every other time, with the idea of spending a great day on the water and hopefully bring home a nice Yellow. Bait was hard to find like it's been for quite a while now. Finally made 3 spanish ( I know, I know) trolling the sabiki in shallow water in front of the condo. I usually don't go in 35' to 40' of water but there was none to be found in all the usual places. Hell I kept trolling the sabiki all day hoping for more bait. I had pinned on one of the large macs and was trolling it around, so i decided to go back into the shallows and something starts pulling on the line with the mac. I thought it was a sea lion because it did not make a fast run and was just pulling hard on the line. I start to reel it in and it lets go when it's about 15' from the kayak after I see that silver flash. I pull up the mac and it's all cut up but not dead. I thought it must be small barracudas. Then the sabiki rod goes BENDO. I start to reel it in and realize, next to the kayak that it's not a barracuda but a juvenile WSB about 22" long. I pull it up on my lap, take the sabiki hook out and turn on the GoPros to take a picture before releasing it. As I start to try an hold it up for the video, he gets other ideas. I guess he did not want his picture taken. next time I'm going to catch his 40+lbs big brother. This was not my vision of the first WSB I would catch at La Jolla. I have seen plenty 40-50lb bad boys hauled in. Here is a very short video......https://youtu.be/vgLzrKszWgs