Monday 3/16

[rossman]

I got out twice over the week end only to be blown off by 9 am We were having a Santa Ana wind event here much like you were having up there, which resulted in my first 2 skunks on the yellows since I've been here. I decided to hit it again on Monday as the wind laid down nicely overnight. Monday morning was one of those perfect days. Greasy calm and warm. Decided to drive over to San Roque to launch where I caught a 34+ pounder on the previous Monday. Launched at about 6:30 and paddled to the waypoint where I scored last Monday, about a mile and a half. Landed on my waypoint and started throwing my blue and white Salsa and on about the 6th cast stuck this beauty. It is a new personal best for me coming in at 50 inches at the fork and weighing 47.8 lbs, including the game clip. It was quite a fight and it totally kicked my butt. He attacked my jig about mid column in about 110 ft of water but made a good run to a rocky high spot not far away in 75 ft of water. My job became to just keep him off the bottom if possible. There was one point where I felt him wrapped on something on the bottom but I gave him a little slack line and he swam out of it. I was not planning on keeping anything today as my freezer is still pretty well stocked from last Monday. When I saw him at deep color he looked massive and I checked my sonar and he was still at 25 feet. That's when I got my gaff at the ready. One of the local pangas was driving by and stopped to watch the last 5 minutes of the fight and when I stuck him they really whooped it up, even more than I did. "Grande Grande!" I took a couple pictures and tried to get a measurement on it and tried to give it to the pangeros but they were going to be out all day and could not keep something that size fresh on a hot day. Glad they didn't because my OTW shots sucked.

Here's a couple on shore shots.