2024 Annual Halloween Ghost Story

Many, many scary full moons ago I shot this ghoulish ghost.

I found her after multiple long hours of staring into the haunting goblin-green gloom…I just saw her monstrous tail going past some kelp in the spooky shadows so I did a quick kick, swung my gun and got a decent holding shot into her…the shot didn’t hurt her at all, and she ripped off most of my reel line almost instantly, but I eventually got my hands on her.

I didn’t think she was that big, she still fit inside the center hatch of my trusty Jackson Kayak and I was honestly shocked when I got her back to the truck and saw she was over 5 feet long and filled the width of the Tundra’s tailgate.

My personal best fish is 74.3 pounds/60.75 inches, and this one was “only” 63.94 pounds/60.25 inches, but still a beautiful solid fish and only my third so far over 60 pounds, and second over 60 inches.

She was spawned out with an empty belly and might have been pushing 70 pounds with roe and a full belly.

Took my time cutting her up, and we had a bunch of good friends and family over to eat and share the fresh bounty.

She also had one freakishly deformed otolith (which is now in my Amadeo shadow box), and I shared pics with Ruairi MacNamara from Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute and he said that “We have noted similar deformity in a small proportion (~1–2%) of the otoliths from seabass heads we collect from the wild. Not sure of the cause, and one would think it might affect the fishes hearing or balance. But obviously not so much in this fish’s case, since it survived probably 15 to 20 years with that deformed otolith!”

Biggest fish of 2024 for me, and I am incredibly grateful that I was healthy enough to be able to spend the time in the water looking for her, and that I found her to bring home to share with our friends and family.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Wow, amazing!
Where did you get her, how to get her? Use what rig, bait? Hope someday can get one too 

Wow, amazing!
Where did you get her, how to get her? Use what rig, bait? Hope someday can get one too 

Thanks Mr. X,

I found her in a kelp bed between San Diego and Mendocino. 

I shot her while diving off my JK Kraken with my Pathos Carbon Laser 120 with reel using an Addiction (Dean Koutras) threaded shaft with a Mori SlipTip.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Nice ghost story Jim.  Thanks for sharing...

Thanks Big Jim for sharing your ghost story.

You're my idol!

Love the story and pictures. We get so few dive reports but the quality of your reports makes up for it!

👏👏👏👻

What a beast! Well done!

Awesome! .... and thank you for the location details