NPB Thresher 10/28/11

[William Novotny]

Launched at around 6:30 from my regular spot at the end of balboa peninsula with my friend matt and his buddy that I met for the first time today, Tony. Goal for the day: obtain an awsome video clip of a t shark doing some jumps. I had the gopro headmounted and was ready to go. The weather was nice (bone chilling at first) but there was no wind, the water was glassy and the sunrise was unobstructed by any clouds and soon warmed up the morning. The fishing was slow to begin with. Bait was not making an appearence at all. Every mark on the finders turned up lizard fish. Finally after about 2 hours I managed a mac and it was the perfect size for the job. Better make it count. I pinned him down and weighted him to about 40 or 50 feet and started to drift. While I continued my search for bait I managed to hook a small sand bass about 11 inches on the sabiki. The mac stayed soaking for a good 2 hours with only small wacks here and there. Id catch a tail wack and wait for the take but no dice. Then all of a sudden line starts peeling off like crazy. Here it is. I hit the power button on the go pro and hit record. This guy feels a little bigger then my last thresher, I try to get his head turned and he's not giving much. Finally get him out in front off me and wait for the money shot. There it is! He jumps and dances to the left, clears his tail by a good foot. Splash. Imediately jumps again straight out then dives. A good hour goes by just working him back to the surface. He's doing big circles around the yak now about 10 feet under me, the whole time I've got my hand underwater getting awesome shots with the gopro. If I had to guess he's about 8 or 9 foot. Get him to the yak and find that I've foul hooked the right pec fin again! Second time in a row now my hook has slipped on 2 seperate sharks to foul hook. (Maybe I need to step up from a #3 circle to something larger to catch the jaw better?) Get him flipped with no real struggle while Matt braces my yak on the oposite side for me. Unhook, give him a little nudge away and watch him swim off to get fatter for future catch. Beautiful. It's not till I get all the way back to the truck that I realize my mistake. I've never filmed with a gopro and didn't remember that it does not power on in video mode. You need to push the power button twice more to switch do video. So the whole time Ithought I was filming I had only taken one photo of me holding a bent rod. Aaaaarg! I'm so disappointed right now but whatever ill try again Monday. Bottom line 6 hours of fishing, 1 catch and release, 1 hook up and snapped line and a whole lot of lizards