He continued to tell me how it came undone, then he had to take off to go to work. By now, I was standing out of my office chair, with both hands grasping my hair, mind racing even faster, completely incapable of doing work at that moment. I had to go.... SOON. I immediately checked the weather forecast and tides then called the one other person that I knew Kevin wouldn't mind if I told. The news had a similar effect on Justin Mayer. We called our respective wives and the plan was set in motion.
We launched around 9:30pm after a full days work and an hour and a half drive. We fished the CBBT lightline for schoolie stripers on the way out to the target area. We each caught 4 or 5 and as the current started to slow down, our anticipation grew. We both put two rods out with whole crabs on fishfinder rigs and jigged a 6" chartreuse swimming mullet Gulp on a 2oz jighead. Justin got a hit first. One of his lines with a crab started peeling off, he engaged, and just as his kayak started getting pulled, it came unbuttoned. About 10 minutes later I suddenly lost tension on my jigging rod. I reeled in the slack and instinctively set the hook knowing that something picked it up and moved upward. The ensuing headshakes and screaming drag run quickly made me realize, this was a big fish! I was very lucky it didn't go straight through the set of pilings that were near by. Instead the beast pulled me in between the two bridges then did a 360 and ripped drag back toward the pilings. Luckily it veered away again, and after about 7 or 8 more minutes of tackle testing drag runs, I leg lifted the monster red over my gunwale.
Those were all the bites we had. I got home at 5am feeling tired, but still buzzed from having caught my biggest fish thus far.
About the Author: Rob Choi is an avid kayak angler from the Chesapeake Bay area in Virginia and a Pro Staff Member at Yakangler.com. He has earned a reputation among the locals as the fish junkie with reckless abandon to logic, time, and societal norms in his pursuit for the "tug that is the drug". He shares his love of the sport through his blog www.angling-addict.com.
