Well John really started something here with his rainy day thread! And its fascinating to see just how vivid those memories still are.
Heres some more that I suspect can by entitled more, to paraphrase the film title the Ecstasy and the Agony. They relate to my failed attempts at catching World record-sized fish!
I guess it starts back in 1982. A few members of our Club were competed against some Belgian anglers in a tournament in Madeira. Fish had been relatively thin on the ground and we were catching inshore, on Rapalas, things like Bluefish, European Barracuda small Grouper and things, all mouth, called Lizardfish.
Any rate, on one particular day, we decided to run to a small group of offshore islands, the Desertas. That involved I guess a 12 mile run over particularly deep water so we decided to fish for Skipjack Tuna, fish up to 20lbs maximum. I rigged up with a 30lb outfit and a small 5 bullet lure, a Hexhead, on a 3 light wire trace.
Any rate the bite came a Skipjack but I can recall thinking that it was taking the boat a long time to slow down. I started to fight the fish and very quickly started to revise my view of the fish. It definitely wasnt a Skipjack, perhaps it was a BigEye Tuna around 50lbs or so? As the fight progressed, now well over 30 minutes in, I realised I wasnt going to beat it with the carefully set drag settings on the reel. So I pushed the drag up until I removed all the stretch from the line. It was starting to sing, then I backed it off a fraction.
After an hour and a quarter an exhausted Tuna surfaced 60 or 70 yards back and, through the interpreter we had on the boat, I asked the skipper to back down. Then that realisation perhaps why the boat had taken so long to slow the controls on the flybridge werent working! The skipper rushed down into the cabin, where he had difficulty seeing me let alone the fish. That wasnt going to work. So the fight continued. And at one time we were running parallel to the fish just 30 away, flat out. The line, as it cut through the water, was throwing up a roostertail.
After approaching 3 hours Id beaten the fish and I was pumping it closer to the boat. Wed even managed to find a rusty old gaff to land it with. But Lady Luck deserted me! Id forgotten Id screwed the drag up and with the fish just 20 out the line broke with a bullet-like crack.
Have you ever tried breaking 30lb line with a rod? Its next to impossible, but I suspect that it might have been abraded by the Tunas and to this day I dont know whether it was a BigEye or small Bluefin tail?
We were bad enough, but the crew that included a professional tuna skipper, looked disconsolate. I talked to them and they were asking what line strength I was using 80, 50? No it was 30, they obviously thought I was crazy. Any rate when I asked the tuna skipper how big the fish was he reckoned it was around 120 kilos (250lbs). The IGFA World record at the time for BigEye was around 180lbs, and there wasnt one for Bluefin. What do the French say? Cest la vie. That just about summed it up!
Moving on then, this time to 1991, and a family holiday in Florida. Wed done Disney and were spending a week in Key West on the Florida Keys. Well I must be very persuasive because I managed to convince my wife to let me go out fishing. It was a great day, with far too many stories to recount here. But at one point we were anchored over a small wreck in 70 of water, over 40 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. (I forgot to mention I was fishing with a skipper, Bob Trosset, who at that stage had caught nearly 100 World records for his clients.)
We were jigging, using 8lb spin gear, and catching Amberjack around the 15 to 20lb size. At one stage, whilst playing a fish, I looked over the side and saw it in the water still 30 odd foot down. But it had perhaps another 6 Amberjack for company. At this stage Bob hook a livebait through the back and starts screaming at me to leave that fish on the surface its swim bladder had blown and get the other rod. The other fish that included a biggie, around 60lbs, were chasing after the livebait that Bob was figure of eighting on the surface
Now Bob was prepared for every eventuality and I guess he must have had at least 12 rods rigged on the boat. So which rod? Mistakenly I picked up one of the other light tackle rods and as soon as the jig touched the surface one of the smaller fish grabbed it. And hes now streaming at me to break it off, which I duly did. Unfortunately the rest of the shoal followed it downwards.
When the excitement died down he explained that hed wanted me to use the fly rod that had been rigged with a 16lb tippet. The IGFA had only just introduced that class and the big fish would have easily broken the existing record. That certainly shows the need for preparation, and close skipper/angler communication, if records are a possibility.
Any rate the day wasnt finished. We ran inshore and stopped to explore some breaks in a derelict jetty. And there in one gap, with the water rushing through, actively hunting amongst the jumble of rocks was a massive Permit. Bob thought it was around 50lbs and again well over the existing line class record. This time there was time to prepare. We rigged a live crab on a set of 16lb class tackle balanced with a small multiplier. But despite half a dozen casts we could get the crab to sink quickly enough to get it in the fishs cone of vision. And adding weight just wouldnt have helped. It would have dragged it into the jumble of rocks. We finally left the fish still feeding!
Now the last one - in Faial in the Azores in 1999 - and definitely the closest yet. And this time we were fishing for records. Ted Legg from Gosport, who some of you may have fished with in the past, was skippering the boat. The Marlin fishing had been slow, so we decided to go out one evening and target Bluefish on a reef in about 50 of water. Looking at the World records the one that looked do-able, and one that had stood since 1977, was the 6lb line class 20lbs 1oz.
So we rigged up a light set of spin gear and tested the drag against a litre bottle of water. Fishing a free-lined small bream livebait the first fish was a European Barracuda but then the next felt much better. Was this the fish wed been looking for?
It was now dark and this fish seemed to have a comfort zone. It would run, and I could bring it up so far but no further. And I tried everything short pumps, long slow pumps but nothing would work. Finally after 40 minutes it went on a longer run, up current, I pumped it back and it surfaced. Both Ted and I were convinced that this was the record wed been looking for. We gaffed it. It was long and had only recently spawned but when we weighed it onboard the scales were registering between 20 and 21lbs.
We went in and it was now approaching 1 oclock in the morning. And the only set of accredited scales we had to hand was a set of big fish electronic scales calibrated in whole pounds. It registered 20, so we knew it weighed at least 20 but less than 21. All we could do was to wrap it in a wet towel and wait until the morning. When we re-weighed it on more sensitive scales it went 19lb 12oz. Then the disappointment set in. It would have easily broken the European record, but that wasnt what Id been after. We didnt bother claiming that and didnt even take a picture of the fish, just went out fishing again.
