7/6 La Jolla Shores - 46 lb WSB

[SDdude]

Launched from La Jolla Shores yesterday afternoon (4:45 pm) with a couple of buddies (Brian and Eric). Choppy surf, made for a wet launch on my Hobie Adventure. Made bait (which took a while), all Spanish macks. My buddies headed straight out toward the edge of the kelp beds where a few other yakkers were hanging out. I saw a few birds circling a few hundreds yards to the NW, so I went to check it out instead. I was trolling two macks...one shallow, one deep (1.5 oz egg sinker, 3/0 circle hook). As I approached where the birds were circling, saw that it was a big bait boil with perhaps a few yellows mixing it up with them. Grabbed my other rod and was about to throw an iron over the boil, when all of a sudden ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz on my deep trolling rig. Peeled off quite a bit of line, then just stopped. For a while it felt like I was hung up on kelp, although I know there's no kelp there (pretty sure I was over the canyon, but no finder, so I'm not sure). After about 15 mins or so finally got it up near the surface and it freaked out, peeling off line again. Another 5 mins and I got him up to the side of the yak. Then I saw what it was...a big freakin' White Sea Bass. My first ever. Giddy Up! By now there was absolutely no fight in him. He just threw in the towel. Finally gaffed him and lugged him into the boat...this was about 6pm. Went to find my buddies to let 'em know, and to see if they had a camera. Nope...no camera. None of the other yakkers that I ran into had one either. Damn. I need to get a nice waterproof camera. Oh well, have to wait until I get home to get a decent photo of it. Time to head back to shore. Done fishing after only 15 minutes of trolling. It was tough pedalling the Big A with a big freakin' fish in your lap! Anyway, very stoked to catch my first WSB, not to mention my first fish of decent size from a yak.

Stopped at Seaforth on the way home to weigh it: 46.5 lbs.

It was 52 inches.

Had to have my buddy help me lift it for the photo! It was as tall as his daughter Sabrina!

-- Raleigh