anyone ever hook something they didnt want. ( lj 1 /12 )

[TJones]

i arrived to high tide and surf about 2 - 3.5 ' . just like the reports had indicated. 3 others were also unloading. after making it out , i made bait . i was using a mac on the dropper. i was fishing and decided to relocate. so i reeled up. my mac was hanging down about 20 or 30 feet. all of a sudden i feel a thump. i said to myself this is it. another thump and it was on like honky kong. the reel was screaming , 75 - 100 yards came off like nothing. i buttoned down the lever drag to max , and almost flipped when i turned sideways . at first i was thinking yellowtail since i was in middle of water column. but the line was running towards the horizon. thresher ? then it left the water a couple times. it was gray and white and 200 lbs. i am being towed at an alarming rate . i stick my feet in water to brace and create more drag. my reel was set to about 12 pounds , more than enough drag on kayak ,catching the ussual suspects. this was not one of em. . i am half way down the hub , by now the drag should be getting tighter , to no effect . i turned the handle a couple times and gained a foot or two , and this just pissed the creature off . line is stiil screaming off . my knife is near my chest . at this time i start seeing all these dophins next to me busting the surface and encircling me . i did not see them around at the initial hook up so i didn't think . could it be ? these creature are smart , and they knew i had something to do with the pain and suffering their family member was having . do i really want to play this out , possibly have the rod and kayak yanked out from under neath me ? or risk injury to animal . so i did what i had to do and cut the line with about 50 yards remaining . i hope things turn out ok for the dolphin. mean while he has a 6 ounce lead hanging behind him , a hole in his lip , and 450 yards of spectra trailing. so i paddle back to the zone and do some more fishing. i caught one nice rockfish , three sanddabs which were all released . i also had three bites . two were while the rod was in holder which i never saw or felt . one of the baits was raked , the other crushed or bruised in belly . and the other missed strike i had the rod in hand . i thought it was a dog , becuase it hit that hard with a popping. i reeled up quickly and he struck again. no teeth marks but his head looked crushed. no sure . i think they were all haliubuts . any opions ? that primarily made up the day so i made the paddle in to low tide. tight lines everyone.

[wade]

Sorry to hear.. I felt horrible one day when i accidentally hooked Flipper as well.. Made me feel sick the rest of the day..he didnt eat my bait.. My long fly line got entangled in his pod of friends and thus he became foul hooked from rolling trying to avoid..arrrrrg...

Originally Posted by TJones

i also had three bites . two were while the rod was in holder which i never saw or felt . one of the baits was raked , the other crushed or bruised in belly . and the other missed strike i had the rod in hand . i thought it was a dog , becuase it hit that hard with a popping. i reeled up quickly and he struck again. no teeth marks but his head looked crushed. no sure . i think they were all haliubuts . any opions ?

Those thuds and bump were most likely Humbolts.

I saw a guy reel in a fin of a dolphin after is got tangled up and sawed off. Make me sick

It was an accident of course, but that's hard for something to come back from

[GregAndrew]

Next time you might want to try to put it in freespool, with a bit of thumb to prevent backlash, to see if it can shake the hook. I would break it off before cutting the line because that line can cause lots more problems for that animal as well as other fish. I know the feeling, and it does suck.

[TJones]

65 / 50 floro . With solid connection. he wasnt coming unbuttoned. Believe me . I feel awful .

Originally Posted by TJones

65 / 50 floro . With solid connection. he wasnt coming unbuttoned. Believe me . I feel awful .

If I get hung up, on a wreck or 500lb mammal I always put it in free spool as Greg Suggested, point the rod backward and lay it over my shoulder like I'm carrying a rifle but pointed straight back. Place both thumbs on the spool and peddle in the opposite direction. Something will always break.

[GregAndrew]

Personally, I think anything over 40# leader is way too much for kayak fishing. If you can't break it without going over then it is probably too much. With 450 yards of braid, there is no game fish you would want to land at LJ that requires any more than 40#.

[TJones]

in pots a few times this season , i switched to the 50 floro . never realizing the reprocussions. i think i am going back down to 40 and 30 lbs. like wade said. if you are trolling and they roll through , its on . i had them grab a bait before , but never a hook. and these things swim very fast. this thng almost flipped me when i buttoned down the drag. i have a very strong rod leash , and the yak and rod could easily have been taken away had i rolled it and flipped. makes me realize the real dangers of being out at sea , in 56 degree water , 2 miles from shore .

[Biggameaddict]

Not me personally but this guy on youtube http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9PSS6Nyvo . That really sucks man but its not your fault i just hope it gets better.

[lterrero]

Always use 6ft of 30lbs mono for my Leaders on my 65lbs Braided, that way it snap at the knot on the hook and not leave the poor thing with 50 or 100 yrs of Braided hanging

[capntim]

Originally Posted by GregAndrew

Personally, I think anything over 40# leader is way too much for kayak fishing. If you can't break it without going over then it is probably too much. With 450 yards of braid, there is no game fish you would want to land at LJ that requires any more than 40#.

X2

[sharonkayak]

Im with greg on this one. 30 lb leader is plenty, 40 lb only if your specifically targeting wsb.

I take my bait out of the water when the dolphins come through. They will take your bait. If you have 30 lb leader you should be able to break that off and leave the dolphin with minimal line and no spectra for him or her to drag along.

Ive hooked them before it is pretty heart breaking

[TJones]

He snuck up on me . And of course I fooled him. 50 lbs is enough to get pulled off .

Originally Posted by TJones

in pots a few times this season , i switched to the 50 floro . never realizing the reprocussions. i think i am going back down to 40 and 30 lbs. like wade said. if you are trolling and they roll through , its on . i had them grab a bait before , but never a hook. and these things swim very fast. this thng almost flipped me when i buttoned down the drag. i have a very strong rod leash , and the yak and rod could easily have been taken away had i rolled it and flipped. makes me realize the real dangers of being out at sea , in 56 degree water , 2 miles from shore .

If you hook up on a pot with 50lb floro there's no way you're getting your rig back with cutting spectra or pulling the pot to the surface.
Break off at the knot and start again

Like everyone said, 30# is the standard. 30# is strong enough to withstand most max drag pressures but you can still thumb the spool to break off.

[j mo]

Originally Posted by TJones

it was on like honky kong..

You've offended countless donkeys

[TJones]

Shame on me

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by TJones

..... these creature are smart , and they knew i had something to do with the pain and suffering their family member was having . do i really want to play this out , possibly have the rod and kayak yanked out from under neath me ? or risk injury to animal . so i did what i had to do and cut the line with about 50 yards remaining . i hope things turn out ok for the dolphin.

I'll be honest: what you did was pretty foolish and irresponsible.

What do you think is going to happen to that 450yards of spectra? Best case scenario is the Dolphin will drag it around until it finds a way to snag it on something and breaks free. Worst case scenario is the dolphin freaks out and tries to keep running away from it till it completely exhausts itself and dies.

First scenario will probably happen in shallow water around structure and kelp, scenario two that dead dolphin could end up anywhere possibly wash back to shore. What then happens to the spectra? Well..... either way it will sink to the bottom all four football fields of it and then it starts to tangle up with stuff. Rocks, kelp, anything stupid enough to run into it like rockfish, lobsters or crabs. It's going to lie there waiting for anyone to drop a Iron down, or any bottom rig to snag it and if any of the many fisherman that hang it over the years are using lighter line then your spectra they are now going to loose their lures, and rigs to it. If it ends up in a popular area that's fished hard over time it's going to create a huge ball of crap that snags up anything that's dropped on it. I know some reefs that are almost unfishable (Venice reef is the worst) because of all the broken line on them. It's spectra, it's not going to rot, it's not going to loose it's strength, it's not going to disappear. It's going to be down there screwing things up for decades.

So what could you have done differently?

Well when something is taking all your line, and you can't possibly stop them you can still get out of it without leaving hundreds of yards of line in the water.

First tighten your drag as much as you can and wait until the line is 3/4 down the spool, then point the rod directly towards the fish take the reel in both hands like your holding a ball someone is trying to knock out of your hands. Now watch the spool. As the line disappears the effective diameter of the spool is getting smaller and smaller. That means it's turning faster and faster but it also means the leverage of the line to turn the spool is decreasing, the drag is increasing, but also your ability to stop the spool is increasing. Watch it get smaller holding the reel in both hands and when it get's down to a few dozen turns then take each thumb and press both sides of the spool as hard as you can, and you will be able to completely stop the spool.

It's all leverage. If you thumbed the line with a single thumb, you'd have the same torque as the line coming off the reel it would slip and do to it's irregular shape and high speed it would burn you. The spool is smooth it's not going to burn you, and since your thumbs are hitting it further from the center of the spool you have a huge leverage advantage so you can stop it.

It's like your making your own disc brake out of the reel spool. Think about it a disc brake the size of a dinner plate can stop a car going 100 miles an hour, your two thumbs are like brake pads on the two sides of your spool disc brake.

Do not try to touch the line do not just thumb the line on the spool because it will burn your thumb. Use both thumbs on each side of the spool out towards the edge and press like hell and you will safely stop the spool.

Now you just wait. You don't have to jerk, you don't have to pull just hold on keep the spool from turning and wait for the fish, seal, dolphin boat or whatever else you've hooked to break the line. Sometimes with fish you will actually stop them. I turned a 9ft Hammerhead like this on the beach at Padre Island, and stopped a Marlin like this fishing a dead boat locally fishing mono. It was actually kind of crazy sitting there watching that mono stretch like a huge rubber band but the fish never broke it and turned.

Keep on mind that Spectra unlike mono is slick by nature which means even in the best scenario knots are never 100%. That means that when whatever is pulling your line puts enough pressure on the line to break it, it's almost always going to slip and break at the your splice or knot. If not there it will break in the first hundred feet or so probably if there is a flaw from you using it. The first hundred feet has been used the rest is like new.

Add to that that the friction of the dolphin pulling the line through the water causes there to be more pressure at the knot then at your reel.

Again...Think for a second.

The reel just has the pressure of your drag setting, but now imagine being in a boat moving at speed with four hundred yards of line out trying to reel it towards the boat. It would be a bitch because all that line creates a ton of friction and drag just going through the water. Well add that drag to the pressure of your drag when something is taking all your line. The pressure on your line at that Dolphin is maybe a third or more greater then it was at your reel.

I know it looks like I'm bashing you but I'm really just telling you this stuff so you and others wont make this same mistake again.

You made a mistake, now you know, don't do it again.

Jim

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by GregAndrew

Personally, I think anything over 40# leader is way too much for kayak fishing. If you can't break it without going over then it is probably too much. With 450 yards of braid, there is no game fish you would want to land at LJ that requires any more than 40#.

100% Agree.

[knightnsd]

Some posts and comments are better left un-said, seems like there were a lot of them in this thread.

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by knightnsd

Some posts and comments are better left un-said, seems like there were a lot of them in this thread.

Yeah well my take is threads like this are good because they get people to think about things they otherwise would not know. The scenario above is not something that happens every day, but when it does happen it's good to know what to do.

I'm really only responding though just to add something.

When you break the line in the method I described above by holding on to the reel and using your thumbs on the side of the spool, you want to hold the rod and reel down as low in your lap as low as possible. It's once again about leverage. Hold it high and the pull of the line will try and pull you over in a kayak, if you hold it low it wont. Brace yourself, point the rod towards the direction the lines going, get it as low as possible, grab the reel with both hands, wait till almost all the line is gone, then stop the reel by applying both thumbs hard to each side of the spool.