Since I caught my big Halibut in La Jolla, the inside of my yak has had a bit of lingering stench from all the slime that got all over. Somebody told me once that "enough water will dilute anything". So, with this not at the front of my mind, and having forgot to hook the bungee on my front hatch, I launch into the small surf at La Jolla again. Can you say Duh? I sure can. Luckily, the hatch stayed in place, so I only took on a few gallons of water to dilute the Halibut slime. So, as I sat out there on the water, with little to no regard to the slime, I accidentally hook something on a Greenback Mac. A couple minutes into the fight, I am sure it has to be a thresher cause it is barely slowable with my 10-25 rod. So, I stick the rod under my legs and try to get my other rod reeled up. Of course, now that line is stuck to the bottom. So after a couple yanks on that rod I give up and hope that the fish on my original rod does not wrap me up. Of course, that is the perfect opportunity that the fish needed to head straight for my other line and wrap once around it. Unwrap, then back under the leg with the first rod, and now I am gonna get the other rod free whether I break off or not. I get it free and reeled up in about a minute and get back into the fight. Now, I have caught a small thresher before, but never one of the larger La Jolla models, so I want to bring this guy up for a photo op and release (not to mention getting my rig back). So, after the next run, I start to get some line back but it is apparently wrapped around something on the bottom. Then, pop, the line goes loose (a few expletives uttered) then the fish is back and running again (whew). This happens at least 4 more times cause the fish wrapped me on everything in sight while I was messing with the other rod. But the braid does its job like a champ. About 10 more minutes of tug of war, and I get the upper hand and finally am making some headway. When I get the fish to about 30 feet, it looses most of its steam, and I get real anxious about it. Then as it comes to color, all I see is white (oddly enough, my first thought was that it could be the underside of a thresher?).
Nope, my first legal WSB. I get to replace the Halibut slime with WSB slime.
50.14 pounds 54+ inches