Alans Story

Saturday, the opening day of bow season, I tried to get someone to go fishing with me. Apparently everyone was too excited about killing deer. Anyway, I went to Galveston by myself and started fishing in my kayak around Stingray Island. Fish were everywhere. I think I caught about 30-40 fish of various kinds before noon. None big enough to talk about. I decided to head down to San Louis Pass. Here I was catching much better quality fish, but still nothing to talk about except the snapper. Unusual in such dirty water I also had out a line with a finger mullet in hopes of hooking something to put in the cooler. I decided if I was going to make it back to the truck by dark, I needed to leave around 6:30. At about 6:25, I had hooked about a 14 inch red and had just got him to the side of the kayak when my other rod went berserk. I just cut the line on the red, and grabbed my other rod and set the hook. For the next 30 minutes and about ½ mile, I just held on while it got darker and the truck got further away. Other people were heading to the dock, and a kayak in the middle of the bay is not a good place at night. I had pretty much decided to cut the line when it finally turned around and headed back the way we came. I still hadn’t seen the fish. I had ruled out shark because I only had 15 lb test, and it would have broke by now. Redfish was ruled out unless it was a world record. I thought the water was too dirty for anything else. More than anything, I just wanted to see the fish which in itself was difficult since it still had out about 200 yards of line and every time I gained an inch it would pull about 3 out. It continued on past the point of hook up and towards my truck, so I was pleased that I didn’t have to cut it loose just yet. However, it was pulling me directly towards some fishermen that were anchored. I was apologizing to them because they saw me coming and pulled their lines in to avoid a tangle. (Thank you if you are reading this) As I was saying a few words in passing, the fish finally gave up and I was able to bring it right up to the front of my kayak. Only then did I know that it was a Jack. At this point it had been about an hour since I set the hook. Fifteen minutes later I finally put the stringer through his mouth. By my guess, it pulled me a total of about 1.5 miles. It broke my previous personal “long fight” record by 45 minutes. It was also the first fish of any size that I have caught from my kayak. I look forward to doing it again soon.