LJ 9-12-15 (not a tournament report)

[broncobilly]

woke up at 4:30, got to a crowded launch by 5:30. (forgot about the tourny) must of been 30 guys lined up on the beach. thankfully it was low tide, plenty of room for my 2 wheel drive pick up to get there with out getting stuck.
on the water by 6 and headed out to make bait. saw a hand full of guys working the pier for bait and about 40+ working the kelp. decided to bypass my normal bait spot seeing how there were a ton of guys there already. I went around the corner and made 6 greenies and a doz spanish.
Trolled around for an hour or two off to the south. got one bonito. really mouthy bastards, all he wanted to do is chew the greenback. i pulled the bait out of his mouth three times before he finally swallowed the greenback. Even than, i didn't hook him. some how i lassoed his lower jaw. whatever, boated fish is a boated fish. 5 lbs boni boated, bled, and put on ice.
I continued to work the area for another hour with no love. Water was flat, not a breathe of wind and some clouds to keep me cool, so i decided today is a fine day for a longer kick. I headed to the west looking for deep water. Got to the canyon and turned back to the NE to work the wall. After about 2 hours of trolling my greenie gets picked up. soft hit. i let it go for 8 seconds or so and set the hook... but pull the bait. thinking another damn bonito killed my last greenie (sea lions got the others) i start reeling my hit bait in. but got slammed on the recovery. not wanting to loose a fish, even a boni, i let him take it for a good 30 seconds. felt like an eternity, not to mention i lost a good 100 yards of line. I close the drag, BENDO! i'm on. as soon as it started fighting, i knew it wasn't a boni. Fish dove down, and stayed down. 6 good runs from this guy. each time he never wanted to come up higher than 100 feet. and because i was in the canyon 700+ feet of water, the bastard had room to swim. After 15-20 min of fighting this guy i finally see color. But that last 100 feet came inch by inch. This fish had some shoulders. After another 5 min I had the fish gaffed, bled, and put on ice. went 20 1/2 lbs on the scale after bleeding.
by far this was the hardest fighting yellow i've ever caught. all of my yellows have been on the same reel (newell 229) but a new rod. calstar wc-870c. i'm happy with the set up, so i don't think i was lacking power in the rod. this was just a fighter of a fish. looking at the picture, it looks like he's got a pretty big tail for a 20 pounder? could have also been that his belly was full of tuna crab and he had energy to burn. the tuna crab in the belly might also explain why some folks are having a hard time getting yellows to bite fin baits in the last week? who knows. i'm stoked.
tight lines!