Ok
Story time
IŽll tell You about Lofoten Norway.
We- my fishing buddies - try to go every year. rent a boat and a guide if in a new spot.
That is the Artic circle the sun does not go down at all, it just touches the horizon and goes back up again.
Maelstroms , tides that rip in shallow channels with 10+ knots.
There are 4 of us + a guide in the boat and we been fishing 16 hours a day for the last four days. So we are a bit tired. We have caught a lot of fish , mostly small cod which nobody is interested in and some halibut - that everybody wants. The biggest halibut so far is a 22 kg fish that fought furiously.
All have rigged their rods with the largest jiggs they have. we are taking 450-550 grams 25-40 cm jiggs.
I have a my best rod -GTX Extra heavy , it is designed to fish Giant trevallys- a Stella 10000 reel, brand new line 100 lbs braided of a quality mark with 2 meter flourocarbon leader 120 lbs and a 450g Flat Matt jigg, a perfect copy of a 30 cm big flounder (halibut snack).
We are in the channel the depth is just 10m (great according to the guide). We have seen a couple of halibut sniffing about our jiggs but not hook-ups. The high tide has just turned and the water is rushing in. We are gunning the motor just to stay in place.
Primetime!
I feel a little "tick" on the line - a tell tale sign that a halibut might be interested. I raise the tip of my rid slightly (as advised by the guide) but I cannot see anything since the current has taken my jigg a quite bit behind the boat. Nothing!
Disappointed, I lower the tip and I feel a solid bite, or so I think. I do the solid- set - the- hook routine. And my rod just bends. Jimmy asks "Fish?" "No, just the bottom" I answer.
I jerk the rod up and down , left ,right to get it loose. Then the bottom just takes of- upstream. I almost loose my rod (having set the drag at maximum to get my jigg of the bottom).
Panic erupts on the boat , there is no question that this is the largest halibut yet, trying to slow it iI place my thump on the screaming reel and to brace myself I sit on the bottom of the boat with both my feet on the rail.
That does not slow down the fish at all. It is like being hooked into a train.
Instead it lifts me up of the bottom of the boat! I am in excess of 100 kg! I am seriously frightened that it will drag me into the water (and that is really dangerous in that current) so I take my thump off the reel
We turn the boat and set off after as fast as we can - not very fast, remember the 10 knot current. It is still taking line faster than I have ever experienced (I have caught sailfish , yellowfin,wahoo, GT and marlin).
Then with a sharp crack the line rips and I fall on my ass. Hit something with my back , really painful.
According to my friends the fight lasted 25-30 seconds, it took est 250 m of my line. To me it felt like at least 5 minutes, I was drenched in sweat despite a temp of only +5 C.
The guide said it was surely above 100 kg.
Hope You enjoyed reading about my greatest failure (fishing)
We went again in May this year and have booked another trip in June -17
[/size][size=78%]A huge halibut was caught near the place where I last mine.[/size][/size][/size]http://www.fisheco.se/news.php?modulID=2&newsID=1362[size=78%][/size][size=78%] [/size][/size][/size][size=78%]PS Large halibut should be C&R only so I really do not like the picture in the link , it is just to show how big these fish can be.[/size][/size][size=78%]PSS The smaller one taste great![/size]
