LJ: 7/14

[5-20]

Got out on the water around 3p and paddled straight out into a pretty strong SW wind. I won't say the XFactor's slow but I can understand why it has that rep. Felt like it was taking a pretty good effort to make it out of the bay, more than it did the first time I took it out on that calm morning a few days ago. Took some time to fill up the livewell. That was a pretty good undertaking in itself. Seemed like the macks were in the upper part of the water column not too far from the kelp and I'd make 2-3 casts with the sabiki and before I'd know it, I'd find myself a football field away from where I made my first cast and not getting any bites. Probably took me 30-40 mins and 3-4 football field sized paddles to get 3 good macks I felt happy with.

Paddled out to the area I wanted to fish. Hooked the biggest and plumpest mack I had. Let out a little line. Paddled for a minute, let out a little more line. Paddled for probably less than a minute and woaahhhh.... my rod's totally bent over. I've got a monster on and I had my drag set pretty tight and that fish's ripping line off and then it got caught in some kelp. I spent the next 20+ minutes. I'm not sure how long it was, really, fighting that fish under some kelp. That fish would rip drag, I'd put pressure on it and we'd do it all over again and we simply weren't going anywhere. It was pretty exhausting. I'd feel the rod vibrating every minute or so -- it was pretty cool. Not really sure what the fish was doing to to transmit that type of feeling.

Then finally.... POW!!! My first thought was the line broke, but nope, it was just the line snapping through the kelp and the fish was finally swimming free. I'm furiously cranking down on it, trying to get its head up and it towed me probably 75+ feet in a few seconds......... straight in the direction of the kelp forest. I couldn't help but laugh at what I was pretty sure was gonna happen. And yeah, that fish got tangled up in some more kelp!

I put as much pressure on that fish as I could for probably 10-15 more minutes and I decided to put the major heavy on that thing by pulling on my Phenix PSW 700H as much as I could... and then there was another POW!!!

But that was my rod breaking.....

Oh boy....

What an experience...

I paddled around for a couple more hours, probably. That was the only bite I had. The dogs stole my last 2 macks pretty quickly.

I thought I'd coast in on the way back with that wind at my back, but nope, it totally died down. Ha... ended up getting another good workout...

Giant yellowtail?

Question -- I had 65 lb. izor spectra with around 6' of 40 lb. seaguar premier.
Would it have made a difference going with a shorter leader? Would that have enabled the spectra to cut through the kelp a little easier? I tried everything I could think of, from pulling on that fish as hard as I could to letting it take line out for a little. Was hoping it'd eventually run free or at least I'd create a bit of a sawing effect that'd help cut through the kelp...

Really, I'm wondering if I should have hammered down on the fish and have the drag set at 90-100 pct when I set the hook instead of the 70% I probably had it on when the fish started running, especially being so close to the kelp?

Oh boy... would've loved seeing that fish!