Big Baits part 6

I threw the "frog" ( mackerel ) to the edge of the kelp, and he ran back under the canopy. The skipper had told me, " every 10 feet or so stop him by putting your thumb down on the spool, when you can't stop him with your thumb, that's a big bass, put the reel in gear, and when the rod starts to bend, "HIT HIM HARD!"

I put my thumb on the spool, and the frog stopped, I could feel him shaking at the end of the line, suddenly the line started going out again, I pressed harder on the spool and the line kept going out. I put the reel in gear and swung hard to set the hook, the rod only got about halfway up before it was pulled violently down to the waters edge, and I could not seem to raise it.

Now I was in a real tug of war with a very large fish who did not want to come out of his kelp Forest. "WIND, WIND" yelled the skipper,"PULL HARD!!"

I was winding and pulling for all I was worth, and more line seemed to be going out than coming in. I had caught many calicos in the four to seven lb range, and nothing had come close to pulling this hard. Now I knew why the skipper wanted me to use forty pound test, the fish kept getting hung on the kelp stringers that kept the kelp anchored to the bottom. Long story short, I finally got my "calico" in, but it wasn't a "calico" it was a forty one pound white sea bass. I was hooked on big baits!

I spent many trips fishing big baits under the kelp, and was always amazed when a four pound bass ate a one pound mackerel. Some days we caught 15 or 20 bass over 6 lbs on the "frogs!"
The hardest part was not hooking the fish but getting them out of the kelp forest they lived in, as soon as you hooked one they would run for the bottom, and the rocks that were always present. Many broke you off in the rocks, or got stuck in the V's the kelp made where it branched off.

Your line would go in the V as the fish ran for the bottom, and as you wound him up would get his mouth stuck behind the V and you could not pull him past it.

Tomorrow: a simple solution to fish caught in the kelp!