mizukry
10-23-2011, 08:51 PM
Sat, Oct 22nd 5:45 am. Got to lake Skinner and parked behind about 10 cars already in line. Hiked out to our spot by about 6:15. Forgot how dark it was at that time of the morning. Without a flash light, it was a challenge to get the lines rigged, but by 6:30 had two rods in the water soaking chicken liver in hopes of hooking some schoolie stripers. Waiting for the typical tap, pull, tap, pull of the stripers trying to pull the chicken liver free from the hook and thread. Instead, after just 10 minutes of soaking, one of my two rods goes full bendo… Set the hook and instead of the quick line peel of a good initial strike, it was a heavy, slow, constant pull. Kinda like hooking a log in a running creek. Couldn’t stop it initially. It was weird, like the fish didn’t even know it was hooked. Just kept steam rolling… . Kept the rod high since we were fishing from shore and didn’t want to hook any snags, and maintained steady pressure. Was using my 9’ Shimano Clarus rod that I use for surf fishing and a matching Simano reel with 6 pound line, so I couldn’t put a lot of pressure on it. Thank god for good drags though. Kept the pressure up and changed the rod angle every now and then to try and confuse the fish. For the first 10 minutes he stayed down and just kept paralleling the shore. Every time I thought it was getting close, it would turn and steam roll back out. Finally, after about 20-25 minutes, it was light enough and the fish was close enough to see. It was HJUGE… My wife who had joined me on this trip, with an objective of just kicking back and reading for a ½ a day, let out a scream and grabbed the net. I had visions of her swiping at the fish, hitting the line, and pop everything’s gone in 1 second (she doesn’t come out fishing very often) but she actually did a really good job, and without any added suspense, the fish slid into the net headfirst. It later tipped the scales at 16 ½ lbs at the lake store.
End of story right? No, not quite… Put the behemoth on my chain stringer. Couldn’t get the thing to fit on one of the snaps so I slid the whole stringer through his mouth and out his gills. Then clipped one of the snaps to a long chord that I have connected to end the stringer and put him back in the water. Went back to fishing and believe it or not, caught not one, but two more large cats which I slid through the chord. By now , there was about 30 lbs of cats on my stringer. One of the guys fishing near me wanted to see all the fish, so I went to lift the three up and the snap clipped to the chord pulls open and the stringer slides through the large cats mouth and he is just sitting there in the water free. Ykes!!! (better than the four letter words I was thinking about – forgot to mention there was a very religious mother fishing with her 13 year old son next to us.). Anyway, for some strange reason, the cat just sits there and I’m able to somehow corral him, and get him back on shore. Amazing… and it’s only 9:30. Still have two and half hours left. Over the next hour and a half caught four schoolie stripers and a bluegill. Cats turned off early, but the stripers seemed to start up right when the cats quit.
At 11:00, I noticed the 13 year old was getting bored. They had caught a few bluegill, but they had said they really wanted to catch some stripers. The stripers seemed to be pretty far out from shore and all their reels were only ½ full of line so they couldn’t cast very far. I always bring a spare rod, so I told them to use it instead of one of their rods. I baited it up and casted it out for them. Within fifteen minutes, they hooked a striper and landed it. The look on the boys face made my day almost as much as the cats (I said almost…). Seriously though, it feels great to see a kid having a blast fishing. He caught one more before we had to leave at noon. He asked if I was coming back next week. Told him probably not, but looking forward to seeing him out there again. What an unbelievable day. Great fishing, met some new friends, and had a blast watching the youngster. It doesn’t get any better.
End of story right? No, not quite… Put the behemoth on my chain stringer. Couldn’t get the thing to fit on one of the snaps so I slid the whole stringer through his mouth and out his gills. Then clipped one of the snaps to a long chord that I have connected to end the stringer and put him back in the water. Went back to fishing and believe it or not, caught not one, but two more large cats which I slid through the chord. By now , there was about 30 lbs of cats on my stringer. One of the guys fishing near me wanted to see all the fish, so I went to lift the three up and the snap clipped to the chord pulls open and the stringer slides through the large cats mouth and he is just sitting there in the water free. Ykes!!! (better than the four letter words I was thinking about – forgot to mention there was a very religious mother fishing with her 13 year old son next to us.). Anyway, for some strange reason, the cat just sits there and I’m able to somehow corral him, and get him back on shore. Amazing… and it’s only 9:30. Still have two and half hours left. Over the next hour and a half caught four schoolie stripers and a bluegill. Cats turned off early, but the stripers seemed to start up right when the cats quit.
At 11:00, I noticed the 13 year old was getting bored. They had caught a few bluegill, but they had said they really wanted to catch some stripers. The stripers seemed to be pretty far out from shore and all their reels were only ½ full of line so they couldn’t cast very far. I always bring a spare rod, so I told them to use it instead of one of their rods. I baited it up and casted it out for them. Within fifteen minutes, they hooked a striper and landed it. The look on the boys face made my day almost as much as the cats (I said almost…). Seriously though, it feels great to see a kid having a blast fishing. He caught one more before we had to leave at noon. He asked if I was coming back next week. Told him probably not, but looking forward to seeing him out there again. What an unbelievable day. Great fishing, met some new friends, and had a blast watching the youngster. It doesn’t get any better.