Wow! Good thing it didnt swim back down before you realized what you had. Enjoy the good eats. Great catch

Nice fish!

Best catching story of the year!

Andy

That's a stout WSB. She does look a little like a black though with the darker coloring. Maybe her great-grandfather was a black? =)

Dude, your boat looks like it's nothing but an empty hull!

Nice fat fish!

YUM! Nice catch!

You eat those eggs? I want to get my hands on some cbass roe so that I can try to fake up some botarga for my pasta. Yum.

Wow! That's a heck of a story and memory that will be told for many years to come! CONGRATS

Congratulations?
 

I inferred from your post that you were CDFW....as in "California Department of Fish and Wildlife". You couldn't identify a WSB?
Aren't you the guys who ticket us when we F!^# up on our rockfish identification? Were you so clueless as to your own profession that you did not realize that WSB are lazy bitches and often go tits up after a run or two, belly up is not uncommon.
To me, anyways, the most offensive part is where you state that you cut the "BSB" free and let it float next to you for 5 minutes before checking it out and trying to revive it. Really? WTF?
Way to lead from the front.

Ummm...

I was wondering the same thing, who lets a fish float belly up for five minutes if they are releasing it. Seems to me the first thing you do is revive the fish. Then on to other things.

First and foremost let me begin by congratulating you on a fine specimen. However, there are questions that I'm sure others would like to ask but don't because they don't want to kill your stoke.

So, let's begin at the beginning.

Your thread says

Stopped caring about the fish and went to work securing my rods and paddle,


I will call you out on this comment for one reason and that reason is that you work for the CDFW. Your first and only priority at that time should have been the fish and not your rod or paddle or whatever you were dealing with.

Second thing I'd like to bring up is the following comment, you said

After 5-10 minutes of this BS, I decide it's more than likely a WSB and not BSB, so I gaff it

Really? You weren't sure so you decided the best thing to do was gaff it?

It sounds like the whole thing took place over the course of 10-15minutes.........that's way to long of a time to decide whether or not you had a trophy fish or a fish that is completely off limits.



By the time you're done reading this you'll probably be like, 'who the f*ck is this clown' and it would probably be to late for me to say not to take it personal but I hope this event and my comments served a purpose, not just to you but to everyone else that cannot tell the difference between a wsb and a bsb.

If it makes you feel any better I had a similar experience many years ago but when the fish came up belly up I knew Gaffing it was the last thing I wanted to do. The moment that fish came up I dropped everything and my priority was the fish.........yes, it was a bsb.


Again, nice trophy fish.

It looks like someone beat me to the punch

First to punch...
 

Not the first or the last time George. ;)

We are on the same page brother, it's far too easy to give the forum "nod, smile, and high-five" while looking at the Fish and intel without actually reading. No comprehension. Good catch.

First: responding to these as they were posted.

Yup. Only thing I had on hand besides the webbing and clip that you see on the other side. Definitely need to get a game clip as reaching my hand through the gills/mouth is not an experience I want to repeat.

Still working on that myself, let you know when I find out.

It essentially is. It's a discontinued Native (brand) Magic (model) kayak. Essentially if a canoe and SOT had a baby.

I would not know where to start a comment on this post (but congratulations would not be on the list).

Whizz Bang
Harry Hill
jorluivil
GregAndrew

To these guys, going to try to post more individualized responses to your posts in a second as I write them. Three things to keep in mind please.
a) What I write is a reflection of me, myself and my knowledge, not any job/agency etc.
b) I truly appreciate your honest comments and criticism. I am learning as I go and will never stop learning. Despite latent anger and frustration at past actions of myself or others, I would greatly appreciate continuing on in a productive conversation.
c) I wrote down the events as I could remember in as much entirety as I could remember. They are not all of my proudest moments, but I feel that any information (including things done wrong) can benefit the community, especially newer anglers so they can learn not just from what I did, but what should have been done instead etc. I welcome any and all statements as long as we can try to keep it in line with (b) above.

Whizz
Yes, you inferred correctly. I got hired at CDFW two months ago as a SciAid (read:entry level) working on some lobster stuff and some sand bass/kelp bass projects. Please accept that I can ID those and at least several other species quite well. My experiene ID'ing WSB has been from photos posted of catches displayed proudly and already ID'd as such. While I felt comfortable from that point of view, I had never taken the time to look for definite characteristics/traits, like the raised line on the belly. Before this, I had just gone with a general gut feeling and it wasn't cutting it at the time especially as I was mostly viewing the fish upside down. I had only read a few blurbs about WSB coming up exhausted and didn't know how it compared to my only other first hand experience of a BSB coming up belly up. My preconceptions were that a WSB would come up with more energy left than that, and would look more 'slug-like' for lack of a better descriptor.

As far as rockfish go, I know a few, but not all. And my position doesn't require that I know them. Thankfully I am about as far away from the enforcement department as possible.

This I fully agree with. Again, my comparison with my previous fish led me to think that maybe they all regain vigor fairly quickly and independently. My first fish was tail flipping before I managed to unhook it and headed to the bottom again like a dropped brick.

I stopped actively watching the fish while sorting out what was going on with my rods/lines. My spinning bait setup was just spread out on my yak over my paddle with more line out than would be preferred. That got organized and stowed in my single rod holder. Did a quick weight removal and windup on my main setup to get rid of loose line and got my paddle situated.

During this time I was aware of where the fish was and generally what, if anything it was doing. In addition to learning more about ID'ing, I should have just quickly situated rods/hooks so that I could safely paddle/balance and tended to the fish. I fully acknowledge my f*ck up here and urge anyone reading to remember that we should do our best to care for the fish's well being second only to our safety (debatable), not necessarily our comfort.

I attempt to lead no one, especially not from the front. I really hope that anyone who sees what I have done can learn from this.

Very fully agreed in theory, I also very fully failed to follow through in practice. Definitely not an outstanding act. Quoting my reply to Whizz:

Cool story and great memories for sure.