BigJim:
TLDR: I shot a 74.3 pound fish and here are a bunch of pics.
Full Story:
After about 3 hours into a session much earlier this year I almost swam right into a fish on the surface…I took a quick shot because I was so close and was afraid she would spook. It was a horrible gut shot, but somehow it held and I was able to land her.
After I got her on my belt I realized I was waaaay far from my kayak. The fish wasn’t huge, so figured might as well reload and hunt back to the kayak.
Didn’t see any other fish on way back…once I was there I looked around and there was a patch of kelp about 50 yards away that looked promising….decided I would swim over and check it before calling it quits.
Started swimming over there and before I got there was already thinking it was a waste of time because there was a pretty nasty red tide going on, and it had been challenging to see anything for the last few hours.
Got close to the kelp and slowed down and moved as smoothly as I could right up to the edge…it was too dark and murky to see anything, so I pushed in a little closer until my head was up under the edge and in the shadows…looking down through the hazy murk, my eyes adjusted, and I saw something moving…I made out a portion of a silhouette of what looked like a very big fish, extended my gun and pulled the trigger.
The fish took off, but stopped very quickly right next to where the kelp headed down into the dark…did I stone her? She had to be only about 10/15 feet down and was just sitting there wrapped around once or twice…
Decided my shot must’ve killed her so took a quick breath and dropped down…bad mistake.
When I got to her she wasn’t moving and I could see shaft sticking out of her side and grabbed it….and then all hell broke loose. She woke up and tried to take off, and I went to let go of the shaft but somehow my glove was stuck?! After thinking about it, I think part of the glove got pinned between slide ring and shaft somehow, and I couldn’t get my hand free…to make things worse the dead fish on my belt was wrapped up in the kelp and was pulling me backwards while the big live fish was pulling me forwards. :smt009
After what seemed like forever with the fish going nuts and thrashing around with me holding the shaft trying to get my glove free, I was able to rip my hand totally out of the glove and let the fish go. Then I was able to free the fish on my belt from the kelp and get back to the surface.
I had a Neptonics popper float on my belt so after calming down and following the reel line until I was above the fish, I inflated it and clipped off the first fish and the gun and reel line to the float and prepared to try again.
For the last couple years I’ve been hunting bigger fish with a belt reel just in case the reel on my gun jammed…I was scared of getting close to that fish again so I decided I would use the belt reel to clip off to the fish and bring her up from a distance.
When I dove down she was on the bottom at 45 feet laying there looking dead…and my glove was right there on the shaft still lol.
I approached slowly and clipped the belt reel to the slip tip spectra and slowly headed back to the surface pulling her up as I went…she wasn’t wrapped in the kelp so she came up pretty easily.
Right when I got back to the surface I saw the Neptonics float had started deflating and I could see release valve had broken off bladder and was filling with water. Lucky it didn’t do it while I was on bottom or might have lost everything!! :smt013
I quickly grabbed the whole tangled mess of float/fish/gun in one hand, and got my other hand in the throat of the big fish. Luckily she was totally dead now. After clearing away from the kelp I was able to get my arm through bands of gun and stringer of smaller fish, bled bigger fish and swim back to kayak.
I knew the fish was big in the water…and when I got onto kayak and pulled it in I could tell it was heavier than any fish I had taken before (at this time my biggest one had been 59 pounds), so I was stoked thinking I had finally gotten a fish over 60 pounds or so. :smt001
I took my time relaxing on the kayak and admiring both fish and having a celebratory lucky NA beer. Could see shot had gone in shoulder and out under opposite pec fin, but slip tip pulled back inside body at same point during fight. Could also see the slip tip spectra had made an actual frikkin knot around the slide ring, and shaft was super bent. I guess somehow slip tip cord got tangled around slide ring and so shaft got pulled into body, my glove got pinned between shaft and slide ring mess, and when was holding onto shaft trying to get free the shaft bent?
After finishing the beer and talking a few pics I was able to shove both fish inside kayak and then paddle in.
Once I drove away from beach I stopped at a pullout on the highway to take my time and measure fish.
Taped out to 60.75 inches, and I was shocked when I saw the scale at 74.3 pounds!! :smt007 :smt007 :smt007
I gutted her there at pullout and was expecting to see a bunch of eggs because belly looked full…zero eggs, but her stomach was absolutely stuffed with baitfish. She had obviously been gorging herself on all the baitfish I had seen earlier in the day.
The smaller fish was 50.75 inches and 37 pounds, even after my gutshot took out most of her guts :smt005
Back at home I tried to get my youngest daughter to take pics of me holding the big fish but we struggled because it was heavy and I’m weak these days, and there were a bunch of those wasps that came in once the fish was out the kill bag and she was scared to get close to me to take pics lol!! None of the pics really do the fish justice…she was an absolute pig. :smt007
Took my time scaling and cutting up both fish and the delicious meat was shared amongst many, many family members and friends and all eaten fresh.
I definitely think this is the fish of a lifetime, and doubt I will ever find a WSB this big ever again, but am so grateful that I found her this year…my recent health struggles have reinforced the fact that tomorrow’s adventures are never guaranteed and you have to enjoy every experience as much as possible. Even if I never see another WSB again, I will always have this experience burned into my memory banks to remember.
The end.
:smt006
Sincerely,
Jim
BigJim:
…
Sin Coast:
Badass
LoletaEric:
Legend.
Tote:
Glad to see you are still at it all things considered. Amazing fish indeed. You definitely put your time in.