Happy Halloween!

[THE DARKHORSE]

After eating Halibut until my heart was content I was starting to think about Hamachi again, my favorite. I had given La Jolla a break and was excited to give her a go again. On Thursday I launched in the afternoon, pretty late, but saw a good sign of birds over boils in an area that I haven't fished since last winter. I couldn't catch the birds or what was under them (even with the Hobie), then I was shut down by a complete white-out, and solid 20 mph winds gusting to 28 mph according to the radio . This was the first good sign I've seen in la Jolla for some time, and the next morning I went out on a mission. The plan was to put myself in the zone where I saw the birds, before the party starts and before I get shut down by the fog or wind. Halloween isn't my kind of holiday, so I put on the only costume I own (waders and white face paint), and went trick or treating. As usual, I launched a little late and made a tankful of Greenback Mackerel in no time. I headed to my zone without trolling a bait, and watched the meter. As I'm approaching my intended area the meter get's pretty active in multiple parts of the water column, and more importantly I see some puddlers about 100 yds away. I looked in my tank for the most perfect green rocket I could find and put her on the flyline, then watched her blast off into space. I did my best to go around whatever was on the surface, as not to disturb my shot. I never threw the surface-iron and decided to just do a big circle around the edge of the nervous water. My poor little green astronaut was absolutely freaking and I kept my rod in my hand with anticipation of what was to come, and BOOM I'm on! Catching 8 lb Bonita and Halibut is fun, but I just can't get enough of that tail thumping on the other end.



Nothing special, we've all seen them before, but if you forgot what they look like (I was starting to forget myself), they look kinda like this .

The only initial reason I was even remotely excited in seeing the school of puddlers is because I was under the impression that the Bonita have left the building (sportboat reports and local anglers), making me think the only thing that the school could be was Yellowtail. Boy was I wrong, during the day I was hit repeatedly with any of my smaller greenies, and my only huge Sardine was hit pretty quick. Later in the afternoon I looked elsewhere before returning to my GPS spot where I caught my Yellowtail. I put on my largest bait I had left and was watching the sunset and relaxing, then I hear an explosion and my Torium is screaming at me. I set the hook and a larger model Thresher comes out of the water three times before sounding, mouth hooked. This might of been cool a little earlier, but I didn't bring lights and she looks on the larger side. The sun has set and I'm being pulled out to sea by the wrong kind. My fishing partner catches up to me and I attach our kayaks, then button down the drag and get to work. One more half jump a couple of minutes later, thumbing the spool, and not letting her go down again, I pedal right on top of her and she comes right up . We both estimate her weight to be over 150 lbs, Solid and very healthy, but surprisingly calm for being hooked in the corner of the mouth. We gaze at her purple beauty as she circles. I quickly pedal in the same direction she is swimming and put the rod in the holder as I reach my 9' flouro leader, then hand line her up to the kayak and cut the line as close as possible. I held onto the cut portion of the flouro so my partner and I could gaze at her for a couple more seconds, then the tail did a slight raise and I quickly let go, bye bye .