Did my usual drill and made greenies in the dark using YT trimmings for hook tipping. Only one other guy making bait, and he couldn't get a mac to save his life 4 feet away from me. I even offered him some YT and he declined.
Was sifting through keeping the perfect size ones and was popping the gills of the megas to kill em for later chunking. When who appears? Mr. Mako - Doh! Nice 6-7 footer too. Blood from the macs must have brought him in. He made a bunch of passes WAT too close and I threw him some macs and he eventually went away.
Anyway. Made my bait, paddled to the zone I've been working and started fishing in the greylight.
The Pelicans were doing their thing on a big bunch of sardines that were stacked up real nice on the surface and on my meter. At around 6:30 my low rig greenie in a sea of sardines goes off I jumped the gun and came up crushed bait just behing the hook.
At 7AM while looping into shallower water trying to keep my lines from crossing, I get picked up in the same exact senerio, HOT greenie in a sea of micro sardines. Let it run so the fish can have a nice last meal and in gear it goes and get a solid hookset. The spool on my TLD 15 was quickly peeling. You know when they take that first run and you're waiting for that little pause to try and get em turned? That didn't happen for a LOOONG time. I finally got a couple of cranks and the fish was running on the surface straight for open water. I managed a couple of paddle strokes to get up to speed and just let him tire out while towing me and playing back and forth. Weird surface fight with my line stretched out and across the water like tightrope.
I kept looking for color, but could not get on top of this thing till the very end....they always look bigger in the water, but this one looked pretty impressive. Bounced my first gaff shot off his head, but he didn't trip...he just waited for a proper head shot and I had to counter balance myself to hoist him in.
Summer must be over because I had to stop a jogger mommy (yes, she was hot) to take my picture. Two weeks ago, I could have asked 1.3 million beachgoers for a photo op.
42.8# big. STOKED!!!
9/6 AM Personal Best YT
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