Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

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This is my account of what happened. I launched at 5AM with everyone else. It appeared calm out until about 6am when the winds picked up. At first it was difficult to make bait, and I could only find micro spanish macks. About this time, I noticed the tip of one of my two designated Spectra bait rods was broken, so I was operating with spectra on a rod that only went to the 2nd to last eye. This seems to be a theme with me. The wind seemed to be blowing towards the west directly into the kelp around the first corner. My game plan was shot, well my first game plan to lose Casey, and Trevor was sucessful, until the light came up. :P j/k Somehow we all met up at that spot. I remember that I had just gotten a nasty spectra birds nest, I took out my knife, and began to cut away. Well, I finally got this rod fixed, and threw a bait out. I was drifting into the kelp, about 55-60 ft. I remember telling Trevor, and Casey that they were too shallow, (what do I know!) while I was trying to fix my rigs.

Thinking about last year, while deeper into the kelp than I wanted to be, I began to rig my broken eyelet rod for the bottom, everyone's back up plan for a ling. At this point, my Iron rod, broken spectra bait rod, and my Sabiki rod got tangled, and some sabiki hooks snagged kelp, this almost pulled the three rods into the water. I had a serious SNAFU on my hands, grabbing all three rods, trying to shuffle, and fix them. The next thing I know, at about 7:30ish, my only functional rod (that I had just cleared the birds nest earlier) with a flylined Spanish Mack, went ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! I picked it up, and put it in gear, FISH ON!!! However, my three other snagged, dysfunctional rods were about to all go in the drink, thanks to Rastrev for grabbing those rods, (actually, I think I just threw them at him :oops: :lol:) so I could fight my fish, for about a milisecond, I contemplated throwing them in the water!!

This fish had not run like my previous white sea bass, which were more slow, yet steady, it had serious headshakes, and long YT runs, peeling lots of line, at nuclear speeds, then ending up in the kelp. I started sawing with #50 Spectra, "pop, pop," then slack, then more snags, "pop, pop" slack, then more snags, I kept thinking "Be patient, this could be a $1,000 fish!"

Finally breaking through the last kelp strands, I saw it color, and was stoked to see a nice size croaker. After letting out a sigh of relief, and victory yell, and in shock, I immediately did the happy paddle in, put the fish on ice, and spent three nerve-racking hours at the weigh in, thinking someone might show up with 40lb homegaurd YT, or bigger croaker. Well, with 60ish other great Kayak Anglers, I am lucky this did not happen!

Thanks to Big Waters Edge, Corey, Andy, and all the other competitors for putting on a great tournament. It was fun! (and nerve-racking!)

BULA!!!

Chris 8)