BY BRAD VAN ZYL and MIKE STEVENS
SAN DIEGO – Landing a 45-plus pound homeguard yellowtail within half-day range of San Diego would be newsworthy if not “local fish-of-a-lifetime” status on its own. Multiply that by about a thousand if it’s accomplished from a pier, and shorepounder Brandon Dawson just pulled it off from Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach.
“My rod suddenly jumped with 2 consecutive loud bursts of clicks,” Dawson told Western Outdoor News. “I dropped my bait rod and jumped over to my rod quick and knew I had a bite. I set the hook when I picked it up, but it wasn’t solid, so I wound in like hell and boom, weight connects to the leader and my rod goes proper bendo with a screamin’ first run.”
Dawson went on to say he backed off the drag “two clicks” and fought the fish for 45 minutes before it was time to figure out how to get the fish out of the water and on to the pier.
“I yelled for Dave and he grabs the 42-foot, 7-piece gaff and he nailed it. It was lucky we put a second gaff in it because he didn’t have help breaking down the sections as it came up, so it caused it to come out from the high counter weight above him, but the pier gaff stayed in.”
Dawson was working with 25-pound Izorline XXX as a leader coming off a 40-pound main line. Of course, armchair anglers trolling social media knee-jerk commented that it wasn’t real, but in this case, there’s no shortage of evidence including multiple videos.
Long-time pier anglers were quick to mention the fact that Crystal Pier has a decades-long track record of big game catches, including multiple yellowtail in the same weight-class as Dawson’s.
