Paul "calico kid" Crane, Dimitri "ugly, large greek man who looks like an orangutan who likes sheep" Peros and I launched Paul's boat on the sling this morning. Headed off on what we thought was a 220 heading, after getting bait, but we soon realized that Paul's compass, was, uh, not functioning... so after a period of cussing, and hitting things, we got it sorted out, for the most part, and found some birds working. There were 50# albies rolling around, and boiling everywhere, and jumping out of the water, but we could not get them to bite. We trolled around em, we threw bait, we threw iron, we threw plastic, but they just wouldn't go. We had to leave em, and after awhile found another stop that had fish on it. Paul threw chum, Dimitri threw plastic and I threw bait. I was bit, just about immediately in the corner, and as soon as I set the hook this fish, without hesitating, proceeds to take line off my reel as if it were in freespool. It took 1/4 spool in about 10 seconds, and then... the f*ing hook pulled. #@$&%. 1/4 spool on a TLD 15/30 is 90 yards of 20#. I was fishing P Line, which is thinner, so this fish took somewhere around 100 yards, without even slowing down (it was actually speeding up). I wasn't about to turn that fish anytime soon. We think it was one of the 50lb+ models. grrrrr. Well, I put a new bait on, got ripped and dropped, put another bait on and hooked up. I started pumping it to the boat, and said it was a smaller one, probably like 25lbs. Dimitri hooked up shortly afterward, and we had a double. My fish suddenly, "got some life" and took some drag, and I was on it for like 10 minutes, as was Dimitri. I found out later that it had tail wrapped itself, and it actually was a 25lber... Dimitri's fish however weighed in at 39lbs. Those were all the fish we could muster for the day. Next stop, CondorFest 2001.
-Brian