I lost my virginity at the Shores this morning!

[dsafety]

I arrived at the launch around 6:30 just in time to see a guy paddle in with two very large WSB. The largest was at least 45 pounds. He had been fishing in the dark with squid. Nice fish but fishing in the dark does ot excite me much.

Anyway, I unloaded and rigged my Revolution hoping that today would be the day that I finally caught something other than bait. After seeing those huge WSB, I was encouraged. Then things started going wrong. I could not get the fish finder to work and just as I prepared to launch, the surf doubled in size coming at very short intervals. It was a very wet launch, but the water was warm.

Peddled out to the bouy to make bait. Nothing. Spent about a half hour trying to make bait and finally gave up. I decided to strap on a blue Crockodile and troll past the kelp. More nothing. That seemed to be the case for almost everyone on the water and there were lots of kayaks out there.

Suddenly... hook up. It was a nice Bonito. Released it and quickly caught several more. Then a small Calico followed by a couple more Bonito with a few Baris and a couple more Calicos thrown in to the mix. I was finally having some luck and lots of fun. Maybe I don't suck at fishing after all.

Since I had no bait, I decided to just continue trolling. I was right in front of the 939 condo when I got another hookup. This one was different from the others. The fish was really strong and went for long runs. Eventually he started to tire but just as I was getting close to seeing some color, he went for the kelp. For the next fifteen minutes I pulled what seemed like dead weight, making progress inches at a time.

Eventually, I lifted a big wad of kelp close to the surface. I still could not see the fish, just kelp but I knew I was close because my leader was now visible. Then I saw it... a yellow forked tail tangled in the kelp. Carefully, I started unwinding the kelp, piece by piece. Finally, the fish came free.

This was not a big fish, maybe 10 pounds but it was my first YT on a kayak and the first fish that I would keep since buying the boat last February. I was a happy camper.

I secured the fish and followed the instructions that I was given in this forum yesterday on how to gill and bleed the fish. Thanks for the instructions guys.

When that was done, I put my lure back in the water and began to troll again. Minutes later, another hookup. I was sure it was another YT and yep, the sucker behaved exactly the same as the first one. He even got himself tangled in the kelp the same way. I was able to land him anyway.

All together, I think I caught and released about twenty fish and kept the two YT. What a great day.

Until next time.

Bob