Posted on Nov 18, 2017

It was a crisp day at Whaler's Cove at the foot of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. Clear skies, the ocean was flat and teaming with life. I met up with Nick and we headed out to S3, my secret spot south of Pigeon Point.

We soon hooked into a number of rockfish including some big browns. I could show some impressive rockfish pictures but this story is not about rockfish. It is about a very unusual catch that nobody could expect on this day and especially in this location.

The profile right at S3 is rocky. There is a very distinct rock, not much bigger than the size of a car, rising from 90 feet to a mere 45 feet below the surface. When you stay close you will find some beautiful rockfish, in particular browns, and on top of the rock the occasional cabezon. Big lingcods patrol the place from time to time. The seafloor just a few feet away is entirely flat and provides little cover for large predators and for that reason it typically is not even worth fishing areas away from S3. I noticed that the water was teaming with anchovies and I took the following underwater shot with my newly acquired GoPro.

As luck would have it Nick drifted off S3 a bit in a south western direction. It didn't take long until something large took hold of the octopus he was dangling near bottom. A massive fight broke out, Nick never had to work so hard to bring a fish up from the bottom. At this point we're all thinking Monster Lingcod but soon it became clear that it was a really large halibut.

Unfortunately, there aren't any further action shots from this fight. I put my GoPro down and gaffed the halibut as it came to the surface. Nick passed me his solid steel fish stringer, I opened the clip, slid the stringer through the butt's gills and out through the mouth before closing the clip, and proceeded to cut the gills so the butt would bleed out. Job done, or so I thought.

Nick pulled the fish onto his fore deck and began looking for a good way to store it.

Then, suddenly, not unlike a zombie in a horror movie, the halibut lifted off the deck. One heavy slap with the tail fin and it catapulted itself back into the sea.

Alright, not a big deal at all. It happens, big fish are hard to kill. The stringer would ensure that the halibut stayed with us. But to our horror, the halibut disappeared into the depths of the ocean with the stringer in tow. The other end of the rope wasn't securely tied or the knot must have come loose. At the end there was nothing but splashing water, leaving Nick and I speechless.

On the way back we ran into our friend Ben from Castro Valley who had fun fishing S1. I had introduced Ben to kayak fishing some time ago and to my knowledge Ben is the only guy other than myself who fishes this coast in a genuine sea kayak. Everyone else is in a sit-on-top.

When we crossed paths with Ben we told him about Nick's monster halibut. What we 'forgot' to mention was the butt's great escape. The loss simply was too painful, but now, a year later, we can look back with joy and consider it one of the greatest catches of all times.

This was the first time I photographed and filmed our kayak fishing adventures with a GoPro. What a day to bring out the camera!

Photos above:

• Nick taking a close look at his monster butt.
• Halibut nicely laid out on the foredeck, time to recover from the fight.
• What? This thing is still alive?
• One final burst. Nothing to worry, the halibut is on the stringer.
• Oops, the stringer wasn't securely tied to the boat. Really? Oh man...
• At this point I still thought that the halibut was secured and just gave it one last push.
• Reality began to sink in, both halibut and stringer disappeared into the ocean.
• I introduced Ben to hand line fishing some time ago and he's now sporting a Japanese model of a hand line spool.