Rockaway report - 7/21/2019

Launched at 5:45am headed to San Pedro point for chrome - started trolling a chovie behind a small dodger at 30 fow.  At about 60 fow, my rod bends over with hard head shakes.  It starts to go sideways, so I am only thinking salmon, but later in the fight, it starts pumping down... feels different.  Get it boatside and see its a good sized striper!  Measured 29" - my first ocean striper!  I re-bait with a strong north drift, start trolling south, go over the same location again, and BAM, another 29" striper - my second ocean striper!  So, I re-bait, start trolling south again and 20 min later, rod doubles down, but this time is different!  Now Im thinking salmon!  Get it boat side and see a flash of purple, again, I think salmon, but just then it runs out and leaps 2 feet into the air right in front of us... thresher!!!  Ive never hooked into a thresher, so admittedly, I had no clue what to do with it.  I fought it hard for 20-30 min, and by the end of the fight, it was apparent it was a juvenile, and we had no intention of keeping it.  We got it belly up next to our kayaks and saw it swim away after a sketchy, yet effective release involving Greg's fishfinder/transducer - not getting into that story.     I got a video of the end of the fight, so I thought I would share.  You can totally tell we are novices when dealing with a thresher, but what a rush!  We trolled for 3 more hours at 90-100 fow for no salmon love and called it once the wind became unbearable.   Pretty epic day nonetheless.     

Sounds like a great day!

Nice stripers! Congrats.

Congrats on the two huge stripers! Wow a thresher! I would not known what to do either. Hope salmon next time!

Sounds like a great day!

This! Thanks for sharing.

nice job bro!

Nice catches congrats!

Great report. Definitely sounds like an exciting day on the water. Unexpected catches with multiple species is always welcomed.

Great pic of the juvenile thresher.

Completely epic!

Looks like great AI weather...

Dude. Epic. Between your thresher and the recent report of the 57# WSB out there, I would be clueless on how to deal w either of those amazing situations.

Congratulations on the stripers!

Thanks to everyone for sharing the stoke.   
It was a really fun day on the water.  Still a lot more chances to see what comes next!  Cheers!

Nice fish! That Thresher looked like a fun fight!