ChuckD
11-26-2007, 11:06 AM
Fished with Captain Gerald aboard the 22' "Rainbow Runner", an old 22' Whaler with twin Evinrude 4 strokes for 2 days. Had the fly rods in case we got into some steady action, but the best action was deep jigging or harnessing up a rainbow runner and slow trolling him. I did get a couple rainbow runners, skipjacks, and pacific bonita on the fly rod but again, the bigger fish were all down deeper. The totals were many skipjack, bonita, runners and other jacks, 4 20lb. plus amberjack, including a 45 lber., 14 cubera snapper up to 12 lbs., one sailfish hooked, and a 40 lb. black grouper that was the single best fish I've ever eaten in my life. On the last morning I was hungover and going through the motions of wetting a line, throwing a sluggo on a jighead into the surf. On the 10th cast I decided that was enough but as I was reeling in something came up and whacked it right at my feet and fouled the sluggo. I fixed it and threw it back out there. A few casts produced nothing and I was going to call it again when there was a decent boil right in the surfline. I threw just beyond it, gave a couple quick cranks and there was an explosion on my lure. The fish stayed near the surface and began thrashing and taking line between thrashes up on top. Then it started ripping off line. Luckily I had a Thunnus with 400 yards of 50 lb. braid (I think that's what Nat/Derek filled it with) as I could not stop this fish. It had to be close to 300 yards of line out there straight off the beach, and still occasional thrashing on the surface. I had yelled and got one buddy down to help, and sent another to grab the camera. I worked the fish slowly in, praying that the slim beauty knot would hold, which it did. Got the fish in close enough and up top and we saw the black comb dorsal and I yelled out "Big Rooster!!!!", at which point the fish decided to take another 200 yards of line again. That was his final run though and I slowly worked him back in and we waited for the right wave to beach him with...The fish was so big for the rod though that I didn't have enough leverage and as the wave went back out there was a "POP!" as the rod exploded. I yelled at my buddy to grab the fish and he jumped on it once, it thrashed and got away, and then he jumped on it again and got the tail and hoisted up a 40 lb. rooster, my best ever. I ended up leaving my camera in the cab to the airport and so am trying to get pix from another woman at the wedding who watched us land the fish so hopefully can post one soon. I'll post some A.J's and the big grouper as well.