Popped My Cherry

[maabin]

What can I say...been on this site and have been yak fishing for almost a year. Been chasing the Yellows for but hard since i live in LA. on my 6th try and my luck finally changed. Got to La Jolla
round 530am on 5-15. Beautiful day, small surf, light wind, clear water, nice current, all but the smoke from the wildfires. Still a crazy sight. Went to the kelp to make bait, no prob. Met William out there in his beige outback and fished together for a bit trolling macs. Damn sea dogs will not leave us so with no luck William decides to go deeper for rock fish i decided to go to the kelp for bass and stuff. Got a white fish and a calico...not bad but not what i drove 2 1/2 hours for.
Decided to give the yellows another chance so i started trolling a couple macs around. Bump into William again and he has to head in. 20 mins later my clicker starts clicking from a what i think is a spooked mack...take the clicker off and let the mac run a bit and click back on. Next thing you know the real starts screaming...its finally on! Yeah Baby! Made sure the hook was set and started to reel the other reel asap. The whole time this thing is towing me around. Finally get the other line in and then it's really on. Strong fish had 2 solid runs and a mini run from missed gaffs but i gaffed it in the back on the third try. What a relief once it was on my lap. Had to give off a primal YES! A nearby yaker gave me a thumbs up. Felt really, really good. considering I know how really bad it could be.

I almost died last week chasing yellows when the weather was bad. my Malibu Stealth took in so much water it flipped. lucky that i figured something was wrong and called 911 before flipping. Actually flipped during the 911 call.lost all my gear, froze my ass off, could not really swim with my waders on. thank god for my lifevest, seriously almost died if nobody could help me. On top of that A week before, a baby seal towed me into some boiler rocks by the LA harbor breakwall and knocked me off my yak. Got my hand stuck in a sea urchin.. it sucked. Anyway a week later with newly serviced old backup reels it happened. Wow really glad that i did not give up.

For all the newbies out there, don't give up and fish hard. Safety First!