Quote:
Originally Posted by Whizz Bang
Afran,
How do you know a puddling yellow is 18lbs? What about the BSB? I am new to this sport (from a yak) with the majority of my VERY limited knowledge coming from a handful of overnights and 1/2 day cattle trips. You have taken some amazing photos, sorry for asking the idiot newbie questions, just trying to learn. Thank you for your patience.
-WB
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Thanks for the interest and hopefully this will help.
Puddling 18lbs Yellowtail
We were shooting the shit, Ron was fishing, I was talking. I saw a yellow fin cruising 6 ft from us. I stood up on my yak and clearly spotted a yellowtail. It was doing circles in an open area of the kelp forest. "Puddling yellow" usually is a description for a yellowtail, just playing on the surface, maybe eating small shrimp or sunning, just slowly rolling around.
As I stood on the yak, I had Ron softly cast over the matt and drag his jig into the open area. The yellow turned and followed it into the next section of heavy cover. The yellow came out of the cover again and returned to "Puddling". I had Ron cast further up the line and bring the jig back slowly through the open area. Again the yellow followed the jig to the matt and seemed to watch it as Ron brought it over the kelp cover. We got another cast on it, but it slowly took off.
I believe that the "Slug" bait would have been the best presentation for this situation, but we did not have one tied up.
I've caught plenty of yellowtail on the yak and on the boat. To my eye, it didn't look 15lbs and didn't look 20lbs, so I gave it a weight of 18lbs. (But I didn't ask, I thought it would be rude. She seemed the sensitive type
)
BSB - Black Sea Bass
It was huge. Imagine a fish surfacing next to your yak, (with the length) yak bow to your skins. Ron was retrieving his jig, watching it come out of the murky depths. He watched the huge dark fish with spots come in from the right side, chasing it upward. As he brought the jig out of the water, the huge fish breached the surface, back and tail full out, doing a 180. I told him to drop the jig back down, but he said "NO!", he didn't want anything to do with the fish.
We were in 58ft of water, middle of the kelp, he was using 12lb line with a Curado 200 bass reel. It would have been a battle lost. I gave the fish the weight of 150lbs because I just caught a "60lbs" a few weeks back. Logical estimations made by experience of fight and landing fish in that size range. (shoot, Ron's BSB could have been 80 or 100 or 120, it was just very large).