Overly adventurous day

Overly adventurous day on the water.

Went out of Albion on Saturday with a buddy. Only his second time out and he’s really psyched to catch a ling for the first time.

Conditions in the morning were a little sporty but nothing serious as long as we get in by 1 or so. Just as we’re launching he tells me that his rudder (Hobie Revo 13) has been acting up and he’s not sure if he can turn to the right. Great. Turns out he’s correct. The thing to do with that kayak would probably be to keep the rudder straight and use the paddle for directional control. Instead, he opts for doing a full circle to the left every time he needs to go right.

So there’s that.

When we were talking about the trip he mentioned that the rod he had borrowed was a little stiff and I told him I’d bring a better rod/reel he could use. At the launch he showed me the rod/reel his friend had lent him — one of those 5’-long, 40-year-old meat-sticks that they (used to?) use for 250 lb. bluefin or something. It had less flex than your average golf club, and came with an old, battered spinning reel with old, battered, yellowed mono — not the ideal setup for jigging for lingcod.

So I set him up with a much better rod with an Okuma Cold Water reel with good 50 lb. braid and 25 lb. mono leader.

1.5 hours into our trip the Okuma reel craps out. The handle just spins and it’s stuck in free spool. The lever to stop the free spool and engage the cranking doesn’t do anything. Argh. Normally I take two rod/reel combos on the water (partly in case this sorta thing happens) but I didn’t bother this trip. Well, it was my gear that failed so I told him he could use my (main) Shimano setup (I really wanted him to experience his first lingcod) and so we swapped and I got the broken gear now.

I didn’t want to call it a day (not having caught any ling yet) so I decided to give it a shot with what I had. Free spool works fine so I dropped my swimbait down 65’ and wham! Fish on! But now what? I can’t reel it in. I had to pull in one foot of line with my left hand and manually turn the spool with my right thumb to get that one foot of line onto the reel.  Repeat.

65 times.

Caught a 25” and a 26” this way! I’m not going to recommend it.

Buddy, after about a half dozen fish on, finally lands his first ling and is absolutely thrilled. So happy! (And me really happy for him.) Puts it on his stringer with a nice verm and a blue rf — stringer over the side, fish bled — and shortly after that… a big shout and he’s in the water! Flipped!

What had happened was he’d reached back to his stringer to lift his fish into the back of his kayak and the U-shaped metal thingie on the stringer that locks it closed, broke off as he lifted it. Then the stringer snapped open and the lingcod started sliding off and so he lunged for the fish and… FLIP! Happened so fast.

I was only about 30’ away so I paddled over to help. He was wearing a Farmer John 4mm and said the water was refreshing but he wasn’t cold. Very experienced diver guy, so being in the water was no biggie for him. I instructed him on how to flip it back over and get back on and he did it without trouble. His lingcod, though… gone to the deep. We called it a day and headed in without incident.

Back on shore I gave him one of my lings, and at the fish-cleaning station I was showing him how to butcher it and he put the filets on the counter about three feet away and a seagull swooped down and grabbed a big one and took off with it.

The end.

~James

I guess you can say he learned a lot.

I had to read that story three times.  hahha..

my favorite chapter was you hand lining a lingcod.    thanks for telling it.  great storytelling. 

I'm guessing that's a day that you won't soon forget...

You need more relaxing fishing trips.

Paul

We've all had those!  Still, wow

"Thanks for the chuckles" I say from the couch. I guess he didn't lose your rod/reel when he went in the drink, so there's that.

my favorite chapter was you hand lining a lingcod.    thanks for telling it.  great storytelling.

I would have just brought the fish/line in hand-over-hand, not using the rod and reel, but I knew that it'd be a total bird's nest and I'd never get it untangled to continue fishing.

"Thanks for the chuckles" I say from the couch. I guess he didn't lose your rod/reel when he went in the drink, so there's that.

I don't know how but he had my rod in his hand when I got up to him. The first thing I said to him, before seeing if he was OK, was, "Hand me that rod!"

Got a good laugh at the end of your story!  Thanks for the share, and way to get your buddy on his first lingcod.