Epic Day @ Tidelands

[JeffB]

This was just one of those days! The day started out as a mission to get the stink off of me. I took my son out to Wolford Sat for not even a bite, and Thursday night I hit SI in hopes of a few sand bass for nada. I rarely ever get skunked, but two consecutive trips is a no go. So I knew with out a shadow of a doubt I would catch fish at Tidelands no questions asked. I had planned to jot a tally down for every fish caught today.

The day started off a little slow, took about 30min to get my first little fish. Finally the stink was gone. I told my buddy that it was time to start fishing now. Over the next hour I caught about 8 or 9 more and missed about 5x that. I seemed to land one out of every 5-6 bites. That kept coming off or just missing my hook. I caught a ton small spotties, one really nice sand bass for that area of the bay and some Hali's.

1pm started to roll around and the current and wind picked up as well as the bite. The fish got a lot more aggressive and were just way laying my bait. Slowly but surely my hook up rate started to improve. Funny as it may be, this was when my buddy decided to head home. He wasn't fairing so well and had a Easter dinner. His one fish didn't make up for the crappy conditions on the water either.

I decided to head over a try a new spot for halibut that I never really fished to see if they were there. For about an hour and a half the only species coming up to the yak were butts. I managed to pull up a screamer that measured roughly 39"-41", tape only went to 36". The had another 30" and a 24". Caught another 3 board stretchers and a ton of 12-16inchers. It was fun. Unfortunately I no longer have a yak due to the new boat, so I've been using my buddies' lately. Plus all my bass gear was up at the shop in Barona. So I had in my possession: a few rods, about 10x 5-7inch swimbaits, a few lead heads and a gaff that I had found that morning in the closet. Needless to say no GAME CLIP....

When I landed the 40incher, he had my blade in the back of its throat. I took my time with him and let him ware itself out. I took my time with the gaff shoot, but missed my target by a few inches. I tried getting the belly, but ended up hitting the gills. I pulled aboard and waved another boat close by to help out ( actually did that before gaffing the fish). Right as the boat was pulling up the fish flinched a little. So after measuring it out, still with my bait choked down its throat (didn't have pliers, another reason I needed the boaters help) and gaff still in it, I decided to slug it. Again those raised another problem given that I had no club of any sort on the yak. I decided to punch it a handful of times as hard as I could since it's head was perfectly lined up with my waist line on top of the kayak while the fish laid in my lap.

This is where it all went wrong. My multiple hits, was really only on hit. As soon as I hit that son of a gun it blew up and hit me back right in the face a few times. It hit harder than me. I was trying to hold onto it for dear life, but wasn't too worried bc I knew my bait was still securely in its throat. As soon as that thought hit my mind I felt a nice pressure in the side of my leg, I managed to get a hook it from the Hali. Off he went into the water with my gaff and almost my rod. It took a nice long run and my gaff floated up from the deep. I started to reel it back in when the line went slack. It broke the hook off of my bait.

The guy in the boat said awwww man. Lol! If I had only waited an extra 60 secs the halibut would have been securely in his boat going ape crap. In theory I didn't care about it getting away at all. My whole intention was to let him keep it, I just wanted to get a picture with the beast. It was the second biggest halibut I had ever caught. So I decided to stay out and grind it out and try for one more. I had a cpl other hits in the day the were identical to the way this thing hit ( about got the rod pulled out of my hand with my drag screaming). So sure enough about 1700 rolls around and I hooked up into another mammoth. It's towing my all over the place. Pulled it off of the bridge. Luckily for me it swam away from the bridge rather into it. It pulled me around for about 30min, then spent another 5-10min trying to pull it up. At first I thought it was a halibut by the way it ran like the other, then it thought maybe a batray on a SD bay secret monster (BSB). Then it started running me around everywhere like a marlin with no head shakes or anything. This has to be a ray, I can't even pull it up off of the bottom. Now it starts doing figure eights, starting to lean towards a shark of some sort now. Grant it I had my buddy on the phone during he whole fight trying to help me ID the fish!

Finally it stops running around and slowly comes up, when all of a sudden it gets one last breath of energy and takes off again, only this time with 4-5 big monster head shakes!!! BINGO!!!mMonster BarnDoor!!! Back to what I said in the beginning, took me 5-10min to lift it straight up from 40'. It feels like its 100lb+, just curious to what's about to come up. Finally I see color. It looks like I started to pull up a small tank, color is unfamiliar at first. I was hoping to see brown and white, instead I got shades of grey. It's a BSB. The sucker was not the biggest, but a true monster for a fish in the bay for sure. It choked down my blade that was paired with a 2oz lead and 7" swimbait. I pulled it up to yak yak and took a moment to get my bait back. Pulled it up to the side to try and get an idea of how long it was. I started about 8" before my zero mark and went a good 3-4 inches past the 36" mark. Guessing its in the ball park of 45-50 inches and probably 50-60lbs. The thing was a toad. Took a few minutes to get her back down, but she made it alright. Waited around another five minutes to make sure she didn't come back up.

The was already an epic day on the water, the BSB was just a Big Black Cherry on top. I count up the tallies when I got home and it came out to....
63- Spotties
1- fat Sandbass
17- Hali's
1- BSB