[jorluivil]

So the week starts off with Roby and I going back and fourth about what time we should launch, how to make bait, where we should fish and what time she should land. Roby wants to put in a 15hr + day and I’m thinking more like 12hrs max. We decide to just leave it open and see how the day goes

Later in the week I get a text from StinkyMatt says he’s in and that Ericko would be also be joining us, Ful-Rac wants to go to but he will roll solo. I get another call from Roby and he now decides he too wants to roll solo because he is unsure how late he plans on staying out so now it’s Mat, Eric and I in my truck. I send out a few more invites and get no hits so its three confirmed for Sunday.

Now I have to talk to Matt and decide what time we should roll and how late we should stay. We decide to meet at the Sams Club parking lot in around 0330 to be in LJ between 0500 and 0530. Matt thinks we should be in the water by 0330 and not leaving Fullerton at that time. After all, Matt have two WSB under his belt, he must know what he’s talking about.

Saturday comes around and I head over to Sport Chalet and pick a new Daiwa Sealine 40HA and a Columbia fishing gear long sleeve shirt. I look around for some 50lb test PowerPro Spectra, nothing, drive to Sports Authority for nada and finally decide to use the spool of 30lb test that I have sitting in my garage.

Now its 2330 on Saturday and I’m going on four hours of sleep since Friday at 1400. I can’t sleep, I toss and turn and toss some more. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP….its 0215 and the alarm is ringing. I get out of bed, check my phone for missed calls and nada. Eric said he was roughly 15minutes from my house and would be leaving his house between 0215 an 0230 so I figured he would be here between 0245 and 0300. As I’m loading my gear Eric calls and says he’s two minutes away, ten minutes later he shows up. No one has ever found my house on the first try.

We load his gear, call and text Matt and get no answer. Did Matt oversleep? Did Matt change his mind? Is Matt already at LJ? A few minutes pass and Matt send a test saying he’d be at the meeting point in 25 minutes. Eric and I leave, stop to get fuel (that’s another story in itself) and we are on the freeway about 15 minutes later. We finally meet up with Matt and no sooner does Matt go on about what we need to do, how we need to cast, how fast we need to peddle and so on and so fourth. Again, he has two WSB under his belt so he must know what he’s talking about.

We get to LJ right around 0530 and start to unload, we get all our stuff together and launch. Eric goes first and makes it through without any issues. I go next, I sit and wait and paddle away without any issues. I paddle about 100 yards look back and Matt is still sitting at the waters edge. WTF? Is our tour guide coming or not? Finally, he’s in and we peddle away.

As I’m peddle I reach out to Roby whose already on the water, he tells me he caught some squid, gives me a location and depth. As I start t pull away from the pack I hear a yell in the distance, “GEORGE!!!!!” I look back and it’s Matt on his ghetto VHF radio: his mouth. As soon as we meet up he says we should go that way but I told him we should go this way. He says we need to be over there but I say we should go over there. We both agree on a plan and we head out to my location first.

I finally meet up with Roby and we start to chat, he mentions that he has a few squirts in his tank and asks me if I had any bait. I told him that I didn’t bring any because our leader Matt said that the Outer Banks was selling a mega super jumbo kayak scoop for $10. Roby was kind enough to offer me a few which I was about to take until I heard someone over the radio talking to the Outer Banks, the Outer Banks was selling live squid. YES!!! As I’m peddling towards the squid boat I run into Matt and Eric and tell them that the Outer Banks has bait for sale, we peddle over and get a scoop each. As I drift away from the squid boat I notice some bait marks on the FF so I decide to drop my squid jigs and before you know it I’m on. Since we did not now what time we were leaving I decided to pick up as much as possible, didn’t want to run out.

I setup a sliding torpedo sinker and a fly line, pin a squirt on each one and slowly peddle my way along the edge of the reserve to the last buoy near the pier, hang a right and run into Ful-Rac. We talk for a bit, he goes his way and I proceed towards the pier and slowly drift between 30’ and 40’ of water for nada. As I turn and head back where I came from I reach out to Roby, he says they’re all hanging out near the yellow buoy close to the kelp. I get all my lines out of the water and peddle all the way back.

I reach Roby and Ful-Rac and as we bullsh*t for a while Roby mentions that GregAndrews had just finished catching a nice sized Halibut in the area we were Matt started fishing. As we sit around talking complaining about how much this sucks I tell them, ‘I came to fish so that’s what I’m going to go do’. They both agreed and we slowly split apart.

As I reach the area where GregAndrew nailed his Hali I start to doze off and started to think about hiring The Darkhorse. I have my bonus coming this week, I could get the ultra premium package and have a better chance at catching that WSB. As I peddle and doze off, doze off and peddle and peddle and doze off I totally forgot where I was until I felt a slight bump on my boat. What was that? I turn to the right and look at the tip of my pole and it starts to shake, nothing big just some little bumps. Since I’m dragging an eight ounce sinker I thought that maybe I was getting hung up on sand, or rocks or something. As I keep my eye on the pole I noticed another back to back bump and I finally realized that something was after it or on it.

The pole comes out of the pole holder, I wind, noticed that my drag was extremely loose and tighten it. As soon as I start to reel again the line goes from loose to ripping through the water and a fast speed. I start to crank as fast as possible, set the drag some and hold on! Is it a Hali, a Batray, YT or a WSB? As I start to reel the line comes out of the water in front of my and I could see the ripples in the water. The fish steers me toward a private boat and then decides to go left, steers me towards another boat and steers left again. I wind and gain and hold on and loose line. Will this 30lb mono hold, should I button down on the drag and take a chance? Should I let the fish run and wear itself out?

Finally the fish line is below me and I start to pull and wind and pull some more and wind. By this time I already have the gaff ready and waiting. Do I pull it up on the port side or starboard side? When I finally see color it looked like a Mako but as it made a second turn I finally realize that it was a WSB, A HUGE WSB. As it surfaced I reach down to grab it from the gill plate and startled it, it slaps it tails and makes a very small run. GEORGE!!! WTF ARE YOU DOING, YOU ALMOST LOST IT!!! That’s what I told myself. As the fish made a second turn it was like a textbook play, he was headed toward me head first. I sink the gaff into the water and with all my power I pull it up towards the heavens and KABOOM, textbook head shot.

As I sat with the fish on my lap I thought back to all the trips that I’d made, the 200miles round trip, the days were I was going on 2hours of sleep, the days when I asked myself if perhaps this wasn’t for me and as quick as I started to think about those days the fish starts to croakS, almost as if to remind me that he was still there. I have nothing but thanks to give to those who have taken the ride with me and those who have given me/us instructions and what to do (The DarkHorse).

They say that some people can fish for a lifetime and never catch a WSB. I say they probably tried, failed and gave up. I tried, failed, tried again, failed again, tried again and failed again more times than I’d like to count but one thing I did was that I never gave up……MORE GOOD TIMES TO COME!!!!!


p.s.
Special thanks to Matt and the 400 straps that he used to tie down his yak.

From Left to Right: StinkyMatt, Myself, Ericko and Roby.