What the HELL happened today in the Cove!!!

To day was a great day to start, three minutes after launching, I fell that familiar tap and within seconds, all hell broke loose. After several good runs and a few acrobat moves, I add a 27" Cali-Hali to the clip. Than a few shorts and a couple lost at the yak. No major deal, that's how halibut fishing goes.
Then around 3pm, it started.
My line stops dead, I'm thinking snag, I give it a hard yank, and whatever it was takes off like a bat out of HELL!!!
After the initial run, I notice my reel will no longer engage, so I try to Handline this??? In to no luck, it eventually breaks off. Excited and pissed off at the same time, I decide to hit the beach and go back to the garage for another reel. Several minutes later, I'm back in action and things start looking better. I troll for another 20 minutes and again I feel a strong TAP and again all HELL breaks loose .... HEAVY RUNS, a few Ariel moves (one over my bow) and a little patience on my part, and a beautiful 37" Cali-Hali comes to gaff.
Things we're looking good, BUT, after I pull the gills to bleed the beast, I place the clip with both fish back in the water and this thing goes crazy, jumps out of the water and tears the first fish from the clip and it sinks out. I pull the second back in and give it some wood shampoo and place it in the rear tank well. As I'm re-baiting I notice a swirl and figure it was a seal enjoying the spoils of my Miss-Fortune. I lower my offering and begin to troll, but hear some splashing behind me. Figuring it was that peaky seal that got my first fish, I slapped the water and yelled to try and scare it away. Unfortunately, after a few more seconds, the splashes are back and closer, I splash again and yell at the dam seal and decide to turn to see if he was trying to get my fish in the rear ..... As I turn, my anger turns to TERROR .... The splashing isn't a seal, it is TWO FINS in perfect rythem .... Front fin is about 3-4 feet behind my kayak, the rear fin is about 5-6 feet be behind the front. HOLLY $#&T .... SHARK!
I couldn't decide if I should sit still, or bolt.
Without thinking, I made a sharp turn and it disappeared ... Automatically I started to increase my speed, and eventually was at full peddle (boy this new yak can move). Halfway back to the launch I had to stop and gather myself.
I came to the realization that I was out of danger, and this is part of kayak fishing, but then I remembered ..... I have a Crab trap out there that needs to come in today. I briefly thought about leaving it to the sea as a gift, but figure if I bailed now, I may not go back. After a long talk with myself, I made the long peddle out only to find an empty trap .... That's ok, I just need to head in and needless to say, have a double shot.

Looking back at today's events, I have a few questions,
1. With the prior hook up of something massive and the splashing I heard, could it have been just a large Threaher ?
2. If it was the landlord, the fins 5-6 feet apart, how big would that make it?
3. Who wants to hit it up next week?


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KAYAK FISHING IS AWESOME!!!!

That's what happens when you try and catch ALL the fish   
Leave some for us 

just a matter of time before you see the landlord.  i remember my first time,  in santa cruz.  first thing i did was take my feet out of the water,  then had a good 30 seconds thinking about life as i know it.  then thought a bit more and came to a conclusion that it was about 8ft. and maybe wasn't interested in me. continued fishing. one reason why i don't go out alone.

we all signed up for it when we launch into their home. 

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Damn Eric, that's nuts!
I need to read that again.
Way to keep cool.

WOW! Glad it wasn't more "personal"
1. Sounds like it might have been. I'd like to think it was Thresher.
2. 9'?
3. Me.

Saturday there was the guy calling in on the radio (you probably heard it, too) that he had a shark on and the other guys out said they thought it was a Thresher, so it sounds like they're around.

And this is to promote your event? LoL.

I agree the landlord heard someone has been smashing the butts and need to take some preventive action. Haha glad your safe brotha. Probably a thresher. They like to smash the bait on the inside and take massive runs like the one you hooked up on.

 

Gotta be a thresher, see you guys at the fall classic

I betcha it was a Thresher  . Congrats on the Butt Eric.

crazy!! glad you are safe...great way to promote the event...I'll be there

Thresher sharks have a very distinct sickle tail shape.  If you got a good enough look to see how far apart the front fin was from the back, you would have definitely noticed a very long sickle shaped tail fin. And considering how small their dorsal fin is for their body size and compared to their tail fin size, if it was a thresher, and you saw two fins, the tail fin would have been sticking way up out of the water more than enough to identify it.  I don't think Your tail was a thresher.  I used to fish pismo beach area a lot with family in their boat in summer when the big schools of mackerel would roll thru. We would see threshers pretty often and catch them too.  Most of the time when we saw a fin out of the water, it was just their tail. Sometimes you would see a little bit of the dorsal maybe a couple inches but the tail would be pretty far out of the water. More than enough to see the sickle shape.

And this is to promote your event? LoL.

I agree the landlord heard someone has been smashing the butts and need to take some preventive action. Haha glad your safe brotha. Probably a thresher. They like to smash the bait on the inside and take massive runs like the one you hooked up on.

Agreed!

Sounds like an exciting day on he water!
1. I hooked a great white once and it jumped immediately when I hooked it so my guess would be big thresher since you didn't see it jump.
2. 8-10'
3. I wish

I think it would have been very obvious if it were a thresher with that big floppy tail.

I'd guess great white or maybe a salmon shark?

Glad that ended OK, and nice work on that 37" butt!


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Awesome, whatever it was. 

Congrats on the hali.