Arrived at the beach well before sunrise and launched at dawn into 1 ft surf. Water was 73 deg. As I made my way to the corner bait was plentiful everywhere -- mostly spanish macks in the 7-8" size with a few jumbo 15" greenies mixed in. I brought my lighter tackle and flylined a spanish on my 8' 25# rig. After about 45 minutes I caught an embarrasingly small rat yellow - maybe 5 lbs. Decided to pin on a 15" greenback and try for something larger. 30 minutes later I hooked into a nicer model. Great fight on light gear - and really got interesting when a f'n knot-head grabbed it at the kayak.
I buttoned down the drag and kept heavy pressure on the line to try to prevent the dog from getting a better grip on the fish and to get the kayak closer and not let the dog get a solid breath. After a 10 minute tug of war, the fish popped free and surprisingly still had some fight left. Got him to the kayak and when I reached down to grab it the dog bypassed the fish and charged me! That freaked me out a little but fortunately, the gaff was in easy reach and found its mark the first time. No otw photos because the dog kept harassing me until I got the fish into the hatch. I was pretty stoked getting it away from the knot-head. Although it was pretty beat up -- tail chewed, bruised and bitten -- it was a lot better than no fish at all!
