The Big one that got away.....or didn't

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yak2you2
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The Big one that got away.....or didn't

Post by yak2you2 »

How can we have a fishing web site without eventually getting around to discussing the big ones we've lost or caught?
It was July 2008, and the warmth of the late afternoon sun, combined with the rhythmic hum of my little kicker motor were methodically making my red rimmed eyelids feel heavier and heavier. There wasn't much to worry about, the bow was slicing the only ripple in the water, and I was miles from the nearest land or other boats. It was cooler in the house than it was on deck, but it was still hot, the thermometer said 74 degrees in the shade. It might have been a good day for shorts and a tank top if it weren't for the reminding sting that the already exposed patches of year around white Alaskan skin were already radiating. It was day four of one of the most productive summer king openers I'd ever had, and today had been no different than any of the previous three days. I started throwing gear in the water at 3:30 A.M. and had enjoyed a fairly productive morning bite. Now I was just sitting there, acutely aware of the sound the 40 kings and 20 cohos i'd caught that morning were making as they gently sloshed around in the slush ice in my deck totes. The sound of the icy sloshing was causing me to daydream about the sound you hear when you pour a cold slush puppy at a 7-11. Why I hadn't remembered to put my gallon water jug into the slush ice earlier in the morning I don't know, but it was now a bitter disappointment to let the luke warm water trickle in over my chapped, wind burned lips. I felt like I was made of lead, and I so wanted to slip into the void of unconsciousness, but I suddenly received a burst of ambition and decided to get up and put my water jug on ice. I stood there for a moment, with my tub lid open, marveling at some of the beautiful iridescent fish I'd caught earlier. It almost didn't seem fair that such magnificent fish would soon end up on a shelf in a supermarket somewhere, destined to be dinner for someone who had no real idea how they had lived their lives.
Suddenly, and without warning, my boat lurched. I looked up to see my starboard spring stretch straight back and immediately thought that I must have hit a rock pile and hooked bottom. As my idle mind snapped back into action I raced into the house to look at my GPS and fathometer to see what I'd hit, and cut the throttle to avoid tearing things up. I was in 90 feet of water and I only had 70 ft. of wire out it didn't make sense, halibut longlines were common to the area, maybe I'd tangled with one. As I looked back out at my spring and reached for the throttle, I saw it slack back to normal. I thought, wow, that was weird, then It did it again. Only this time it began the rhythmic, tell tale pumping action that indicated that a fish was on. I could tell immediately though that this was not an ordinary fish. each pump of the spring was rattling my rigging, and causing vibration through the whole boat that I could feel with my feet. Up and back went the wire, way back, and then out to the side, the fish was swimming around with my 25 lb. cannonball! Temporary panic set in as I dashed around like a dog chasing it's tail looking for gloves, and gaffs.
I was rigged up with a big ball spoon with a #8 hook on it that was specifically designed to catch and hold a fish of this magnitude, but unfortunately this was not the hook he was on. The next stop up, nine feet above the ball, had a flasher on a 3 fathom leader with a gold and chrome #5 S2B spoon trailing behind it. This was the rig that I'd caught this mystery fish on. I was fishing all 120# test so I wasn't to worried about parting out.
I worked my way down through a couple of spoons and got to my top flasher, which had the leader pointing straight down. I set the break and started trying to work whatever was on it up to the surface when I realized that it was caught on something else, then I realized that it didn't even have the fish on it. When I'm fishing shallow I stagger spoon, flasher, spoon, flasher, spoon, with 1.5 fathom stops, I rarely have any tangle ups. Some how this fish had slid my snubber snap up out of it's stop and up the wire to the spoon above it, from there it was able to swim up and tangle with the flasher above it. I didn't care. I'd sort all that out later. I clipped the top flasher snubber off to my overhead, and continued down. I came to the right stop, reached out and gently removed the top flasher hook from the leader that the fish was on, and started to pull him in. I got about a fathom of leader in when I got my first look at him. This was by far the biggest king I'd ever seen before. I've caught and sold several in the 40 to 50 lb. range trolling. I've caught one that was 64 lbs. in a gillnet when I was a kid, but this fish was bigger! If I had to take an honest guess based on the look that I got, I'd have to say that he was somewhere between 60 and 70 lbs.
Sometimes kings can be quite docile about the whole affair, but not this one, he was extremely pissed off. We had a small tug-a-war, but I played him right, and eventually got the flasher in hand, the fight was just about over. He was at the boat now, thrashing and rolling, splashing me in the face with cool exilerating seawater, and I waited like his executioner with my gaff held over head, waiting for the shot I was looking for. this very moment in time was the one that people like me look for all their lives. As soon as He would relax for just a second, i'd put him to sleep. He finally stopped rolling and with the last of his energy he flopped his head from side to side, and pink! out popped the hook. I lunged with the gaff but it was to late, he was out of reach. The one weak link I had going against me had finally taken affect. My little S2B spoons won't flutter properly with anything bigger than a #6 hook on them. I've caught 30 to 40 pounders with #6's, no problem, but this fish simply had to much. The little #6 held on valiantly, and it never did bend, but it wasn't big enough to get back into anything solid, it only had him by the lip.
I stared in utter disbelief, as the big slab lay basking on the surface for a while before he finally realized that he was free, and plunged for the bottom. As a final act, he stuck his whole, giant tail out of the water as if tipping his hat for a battle well had, or maybe he did it because fish don't have middle fingers, I guess i'll never know.
I was sick. I pulled off my gloves in disgust, left my whole side of gear trailing from the overhead and the hook that I'd lost my fish on dragging in the water, went in the house, closed the door, and sat there for a while. Soon enough another, what I now deemed irrelevant, fish hit on my side that was still out, signaling the start of the evening bite, I didn't care. It wasn't about the money, I'd already made plenty, I wanted THAT fish.
Eventually I snapped out of it, and went back to work, but for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, I tortured myself with shoulda-coulda-wouldas. Why didn't I grab my .22 pistol? why didn't I get down my dipnet? Why hadn't I slowed down? etc., etc.
I'm happy to report that I've made my peace with it. The Native Americans would have call it counting coup. That fish and I got to see, and challenge each other on that most glorious of sunny days, and nobody really lost. I got to catch him, what more was left really? Drag the thing up on the dock so I could crow over it like some kid that never caught a king before, then sell it to somebody that probably wouldn't have deserved it. I'm not saying that I'm going the way of Gahndi, and planning on setting all my big kings free, i'm saying that if you've played the game well and still get beat, there's nothing really to be mad about. I'll have the memory of it for the rest of my life, so I didn't really lose anything.
Salty
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Re: The Big one that got away.....or didn't

Post by Salty »

It wasn't that big ones day to die.
What a great story, especially the reconciliation part. We don't do this for the money, the slaughter, or even the scenery. We do it for the love of fishing. The satisfaction of the seduction of an elusive wily creature with our lures. The feeling of competence from getting it all together with the equipment, the time, the information, the politics, the regulations, our experience, and our intuition to connect with these wild creatures.
The climax is when we have that creature a gaff length away and we are about to conk it, take its life. The actual conking, gaffing, landing, cleaning, etc. is all anti or post-climatic. And as long time Alaskans who live off the land for not only our income but a great deal of our sustenance we know better than to purposefully torment these great creatures by playing them for our "sport" by catch and release.
But, sometimes when that big one has made that final tug, the final run, and somehow against all odds got off and saved itself, we have mixed feelings. A slight bit of frustration perhaps in that we might have done something different to prove our ability to finish the scene, the act, to reinforce our ability as predator. And then that other thought creeps in, the one of admiration for our prey who has somehow, someway, in the 11th hour of its life, escaped to play again.

Your story brought these feelings I articulate here out. Your description of the final act of defiance was exquisite. Great writing Yak. Thank you.

I think maybe we should start a new thread. "For the love of trolling." And ask everyone to describe why they troll salmon. What do you think Jon?
yak2you2
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Re: The Big one that got away.....or didn't

Post by yak2you2 »

I'm glad you liked it. If anyone else has any cool fish stories, win, or lose, I would very much like to read them.
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