On Friday (Nov 4); Jeff and I headed out of St. Marks
Lighthouse a few miles.
The short story is:
This first picture doesn't really give you scale; but upon close
examination you will see that the 'bait' fish is a ~22 inch grouper;
which Jeff had hooked up with a pinfish. The circle hook passed through
the gags mouth and then into the big guy - fortunately the drag was set
just right to let the fun begin. Lucky move #1:
After Jeff hooked it (and it was like trying to stop a Volkswagen);
we quickly tossed anchor - Lucky move #2 (buoy on the end of the anchor
for this reason, btw) and started to follow the beast. I was telling Jeff not
to be a Gulley-man - and pump and lift - but don't horse him! After
about 20 minutes; he handed the rod to me.
Jeff - I take back that Gulley-man stuff.
The fight lasted about an hour; [Senator 4/0 with 60 pound test and
80 pound fluoro leader with a #8 Gamaktsu Red Circle Octopus Hook]. A
testimony to this gear. The line was pulled to 99% of its breaking
point numerous times - and as I thumbed the feeding spool I could feel the abraded portions of the line - and would feel much better every time
I would get this stretched part(s) of the line buried back into the
spool.
The stretching line would squeal and pop and changing diameter as he
would make a run. I love braided line - but I think without the
stretch of this mono - we would not have landed this beast (Lucky move #3).
The beast was too big to have any structure to go in or around to break
us off.
The turning point in the fight was when we over-ran the beast with
the boat and then turned the boat around and started pulling hard reverse
- this started bull-dogging him in the same direction he was going. No
one expects the unexpected....This is when we turned the washing machine size head on him. I'd get 1' of line and he'd take back 11"; I'd get 2' and he'd take 1.9'; finally we saw the shadow rise up from the depths. We thought it was a huge ray - nope; big turtle - nope; and then he'd head for the bottom again; leaving us guessing. A nurse shark - nope; finally I thought it was a huge hammerhead that we had hooked by the tail.Jeff kept the boat in reverse at about 2 miles/hour and maneuvered around crab traps. Finally - the behemoth beast surfaced on his side.
After we got it him up - we couldn't get any pictures of the fish to scale
- luckily we waved down a boat and handed them the camera and they
started snapping pictures. When the fish got his dorsal fin straight up -
Katie Bar The Door! - diving, diving, diving - she was going down. We
recovered from these runs a few times - Lucky moves #4 and 5.
About the time I got the gaff - (now we're thinking straight) - in the
big boys mouth he did this tremendous crocodile roll and the rear
handle pulled off the gaff; and the line broke and I just about launched
into the water; luckily (?) keeping one hand on the lower part of the gaff - I recovered using Lucky moves #6, 7, and 8.
Finally, Jeff and I gave it the heave ho for the final set of
pictures - and all that we could get out of the water was his head up to his
gills; of which we estimate that we lifted about 200 pounds of fish at that
point. We removed the gaff - and the small keeper gag that started
this whole party swam free when the line had broken. The guys in the
other boat started laughing at us - telling us that we let the keeper gag
go - and only had left the fish that we had to throw back.
Upon releasing the big guy; I reached over and gave him a solid pat
on the side - he lay on the surface for about a minute about as exhausted as we were. He was looking at us with that baseball size eye and then
gently righted himself. His whale like tail gently sent him back down to
the depth from where he came.
We're still trying to research this but we believe the length is
about 6 1/2 feet long - and believe it is in the 350 to 400 pound class; a
Goliath Grouper. He was in apparently great shape - no marks or scars on him; eyes clear. So; this guy did OK with the last red tide - thankfully.
A hearty thanks to the Boston Whaler - (Mr. Hogan - maybe) that took
the pictures - much appreciated.
An incredible experience to have on the water.
Hereby named: St. Jethro - the Goli Man.
