BY LONG LIU
GOLETA – At 5 a.m. I dragged myself out of the tent, set up camp, and rigged the kayak. Despite my early start, I didn’t make it onto the water until 9:30 much later than planned. I launched into pretty big waves, five footers, but with good timing I made it out unscathed. Thanks to some intel from Kei Vang, I was able to make bait quickly and had one on the bottom by 10 a.m.
Not two seconds after it hit bottom, something absolutely crushed it. I assumed it was a nice halibut, but we’ll never know because it popped off after only a few seconds. The bait came back completely shredded.
With only one other live bait left in the well, I sent the dead bait from the first strike back down and started trolling toward the area Kei had recommended. Five to ten minutes later, my line took off in the opposite direction.
Fish on.
Whatever it was, my Tranx 500 couldn’t slow it down, so I decided to chase it down. The fight felt like it lasted forever, and the entire time I was convinced I had hooked a big shark. After what seemed like half a dozen blistering runs, I finally saw color.
“Damn shark.”
Then I looked again.
“Holy s—t! , that’s a giant white seabass.”
At that moment, I became more religious than I had ever been in my life, praying to every god I could think of to help me land that fish.My excitement quickly turned to panic when I realized my gaff was gone. I must have lost it during the launch.
After a few seconds of pure horror, I calmed myself down and decided I was going to grab the fish by the tail, just like I’d seen Field Trips with Robert Field do so many times in his YouTube videos. As soon as I reached for it, I realized there was no chance, it was simply too big.
I regrouped once again and decided to go for the gill plate. I braced myself for a violent thrashing the moment I touched it, but the fish was completely spent. I got a solid grip, slid it across my lap, and had it secured without much of a fight. One quick poke with my scissors to the head and the battle was finally over.
The fish of a lifetime. Another species checked off the bucket list, and a day I’ll never forget.
