Fishing Log-105 [Yellow & Black Diamond]

Hello everyone, this is the 105th installment of my fishing log, where I had originally planned to go for tilefish this coming weekend because the weather forecast looked bad.

Then, the day before this trip, I got a call asking, "Would you like to go for yellowtail kingfish and yellowfin tuna tomorrow?" Tilefish would have been more relaxing, but yellowfin tuna was actually my second planned fishing trip of the year, and I have some new lures I want to test out, so I decided to jump on board.

I gently asked about the necessary gear and hurriedly prepared. I was told I needed casting gear for yellowfin and kingfish, and that jigging gear would also be good to have, so I got those ready.

For my casting rods, I chose my Ripple Fisher and Mangrove Studio 815PGS. I plan to use the Ripple for plugs, and maybe use the 815PGS for things like the Ozma or TT Glide. I chose this setup with the intention of getting more distance than I would with the 706 or CBONE.

For reels, I have the Stella 14000 with 50lb and 40lb PE line. The 50lb setup has a 130lb leader, and the 40lb setup has an 80lb leader.

For jigging, I have the Saltiga R with a Stella 6000. It's spooled with 2.5 PE line and an 80lb leader. I've newly equipped the Ya-Gara Pop lure, and I'm ready to go.

I probably won't catch anything. That's fine, I know that already. I'm feeling pretty reckless, desperate, and ready to throw in the towel.

The Fishing Trip

This time, I joined without asking who the other members were. Then, the first person arrived. It was Mr. M, a tuna soldier who boasts overwhelming combat power and is said to have an unusually high catch rate for yellowfin—or rather, perhaps the highest—even among the Knot Enough group, where the regulars include legendary anglers, monster fish hunters, people with superhuman strength, and frankly, pros. He has the look of a gentle, handsome man. But he looks strong. I'm scared.

The next person was Abdel, the builder of GPC lures. He is clearly big and looks strong. I'm scared.

The next person was a handsome man who spoke in a very laid-back manner. After talking for a while, I remembered that the president of a certain fishing tackle manufacturer had a name like that, and since it would be awkward to ask, I Googled it and sure enough...

I'm scared.

I mean, aren't these people all pros except for me? What kind of place have I stumbled into? I'll try to keep a low profile and hold my breath as we head to our destination. Even when we arrive, I thought I'd just stay at the stern and jig so as not to bother anyone, or maybe I should just jump overboard.

As for the destination, when I was invited last time, I heard it would be "around Oshima," so I vaguely assumed it would be the same this time. But we didn't head right toward the Uraga Channel; we went almost straight. Huh? I wondered, and when I asked, I was told we were heading toward Mera. I had originally heard that 200g-300g jigs were needed for jigging, but Mera is a place where you can catch a wider variety of fish with smaller jigs around 120g. I regretted not asking properly and wished I had brought my baitcasting tackle... but it can't be helped. I shifted my mindset to think about what to do once we arrived. Still, I secretly changed my leader from 80lb to 20lb and attached a decent-looking jig.

And so, we almost arrived. The wind had died down, and the sea was calm and quiet.

Silence...

Hmm, I wonder if there are any yellowfin here? As a bit of an uneasy mood drifted through the boat, the captain offered us a choice to break the stagnation: "Should we wait for about an hour, or go for yellowtail kingfish?" Honestly, waiting is one thing, but kingfish also feels a bit iffy... Just as I thought that, Mr. Abdel said, "We have to wait, or rather, let's go find them (spoken in English)." That was a nice suggestion. And so, the search began. Then, in less than an hour, we were able to pinpoint the hideout of the criminal group.

They're there, they're there. Those water columns are all tuna. I'm going to catch them all in one fell swoop.

It's a common thing with offshore fishing after a long break, but the first school of fish you see always looks so good. Is it like that Indian proverb, 'Good memories are light coming from afar'?

It seems like there are many cases where the angler regrets, 'Why did I mess up that cast...', and the captain reflects, 'I could have positioned the boat better, sorry everyone.' Even though that's not really the case. And in normal situations, the fish stop jumping after that, and you head home feeling like you were just pushing against a curtain. But this time was a miracle, a bonus round, and probably an easy round that might be the first and last.

We position the boat, cast, and think, 'Ah, they sank...' and get discouraged, but by the time our spirits hit rock bottom, new water columns are already being born within sight. The school must be huge. We were rotating fishing spots, moving clockwise after casting about twice. And then it came, that moment.

Something like this. But why am I holding a pickaxe?

And that was the moment I came to the port side. Probably the 6th school of fish.

It followed the pattern I drew before, and since the school seemed to be moving in the 7 to 9 o'clock direction, I cast my Ozma to the front of the school. Then, a bite occurred that sounded just like the onomatopoeia 'clunk'. It was a way of getting them to bite just like the mental image I had predicted.

'Alright, it bit.'

I whispered quietly in a tone just barely audible to those around me, and the test of strength began.

When I first hooked a yellowfin, I was so surprised by the suddenness—perhaps because I had been too confident, thinking 'There's no way I'll catch one!!'—that the hook came out. The next time was the same. Well, those two times were also due to drag and hook issues. The next time I hooked a big fish, I had some leeway from hooking to fighting, but it was probably a shark that broke the line.

But this time, the lure and line were brand new, and the drag was set to 5kg, so I had (almost) no worries about the equipment. First, I let it run, and after it was fully hooked, I aimed for a victory like a Yokozuna sumo wrestler.

By the time I hooked this, I knew that a normal cast flew about 60m, thanks to the color of the line. So, the training to reel it in from the 60m mark began.

But, you know, it was heavy. What happened? It was so heavy, and it was like a piece of violence in the shape of a fish was dashing around.

Since I have a mentality as fragile and easily crumbled as tofu, I like spicy food, but I usually hate painful experiences. If possible, I wanted to catch a yellowfin around 10kg, one where I could win easily and say, 'That put up a good fight,' or actually, I would have been fine with a kihada (yellowfin tuna) juvenile, or rather, I preferred a juvenile. I just wanted the experience of having caught a yellowfin first.

And while I was thinking in such a shallow, childish, and self-centered way, this happened. The rod was relatively light, though it was for tuna, so it was basically a 'stick'. But it looked like this.

I often see this kind of thing in promotional photos for fishing gear manufacturers, but I never thought it would happen to me...

It doesn't feel strange. But it is Mangrove Studio, after all.

An explanation video for the same rod. It looks like it's about 15-20kg in this video.

I repeat the process of reeling in 5m, having 10m pulled out, reeling in 5m again, having 10m pulled out, and this time I managed to reel in 10m, but then had 5m pulled out... and somehow I manage to haul it in. Like bonito, tuna seem to circle when their heads are turned upward. I expected them to circle more, but they didn't really, and when I asked the captain, he explained, 'Probably because it's a large size, it's circling in a big way.' It's somehow really amazing.

As it enters the second half, in addition to the running and stopping behavior of the first half, resistance like thrashing about is added. While managing that—or rather, ignoring it—I finally brought it up, and its figure finally appeared. Just a little more, less than a meter, and it would surface. Oh, I did it.

Just when I thought that, it suddenly made a fierce dash of about 50m. Since my hands couldn't move anymore, I had someone else take over for a moment. But this was a mistake.

During the fight, I received various pieces of advice from the captain. Like, 'You should tighten the drag a little more.' This is because he has seen my pathetic performance several times in the past lol
So, I think he felt that the drag was loose this time too, but when he took over, he had an expression as if a new fact had been discovered, saying, 'Huh? The drag is actually quite tight... I mean, this is quite huge.' By the way, the captain's record so far seems to be 47kg.

While they were working hard on it, since it looked bigger than expected, the whole crew took turns trying to land it. Then, at a sudden moment, the fish's behavior became strange. When the captain let out an ominous remark, 'Could this be... a shark...', the fish summoned its last strength and made a fierce dash. It flew off about 150m in one go—well, it swam—and attempted a great escape.

Since I didn't actually see it, I don't know what happened underwater, but I assume it was found by a shark, fled, and had its tail fin bitten by another shark while fleeing. That's how I think it ended, but after the tail fin was eaten, it came up easily as it was just heavy. It couldn't swim anymore, after all.

So, this time it came up cleanly to the surface, but it was huge. Using a net, two of us had it gaffed, and we landed it.

Phew... it's finally over...

Tackle Data
・Rod: Mangrove Studio Black Hercules 815pgs
・Reel: Stella 14000xg
・Lure: Ozma SHW115 Natural Blue
・Line: Seaguar X8 Multicolor 5.0
・Leader: Fluorocarbon 130lb
・Swivel: Carpenter #3

Honestly, I didn't feel a thrill that would make me tremble, but rather, how should I put it, a sense of relief or something... And things like this tend to sink in gradually afterward.

There is a famous Chinese proverb in this circle, though I suspect it might be a creation by Ken Kaiko, which seems to go like this:
--
If you want to be happy for a day, drink alcohol.
If you want to be happy for three days, get married.
If you want to be happy for seven days, kill a pig and eat it.
If you want to be happy for a lifetime, learn to fish.
--
Well, you can be happy for three days if you catch one this size. If you want to get married but can't, I think you should just catch a tuna.

And everyone says things like 'It must be 50kg,' but this is the first time I've seen a decent-sized yellowfin tuna in front of me. Last year I only saw a small one around 5kg, so I have no idea how much it weighs.

Is it a 150L one? The lid won't close. After this, I couldn't move for a while. Maybe the fire inside me had gone out, or something like a well had dried up, or I had simply used up all my physical strength... I mean, I didn't even bring a cooler...

And, well, as if this had sparked it, the schools of fish (nabura) after this became tremendous.

I don't think you see something like this very often when fishing in Sagami Bay. It might only be understood by anglers, but I think it's worth spending money just to see such schools of fish.

I have never seen this level in Sagami Bay either. A school of fish of this size occurs, or rather is discovered, about once every 30 minutes. And as long as the boat doesn't get too close, it can continue indefinitely. So, I thought it was only a matter of time before I caught one, and then I really did catch one.

And two of them, at that. This is a huge deal. The one in the foreground is 40kg, and the one in the middle is over 70kg.

Then, further tragedy struck us. While I was sitting at the stern taking a break, an object that looked like a handle flew off and dissolved into the sea. Why?

The thing is, after this image, the tuna team started moving toward the stern on their own while flapping and thrashing about. However, because of their massive size, they get stuck along the way. And when they got stuck, they started to thrash, and while they were flapping their tails, it seems they kept hitting the handle of the Saltiga in the foreground, and it seems they kept loosening the handle with a flap-turn, flap-turn motion.

Still, a 70kg giant, about 165cm long—that's basically a human, isn't it? About the size of a slightly chubby middle-aged man. It's a big deal when this thing thrashes around. It was thrashing so hard that I thought, 'Is this boat going to break?' and the captain had to scold it by hitting it on the head with a hammer.

Even as the sun begins to set, the tuna team is full of energy. Mr. Katayama also gets a bite on his original lure. When he said, 'Huh? Is this hooked in the tail? It's a strange pull,' he safely caught a magnificent one, I think it was 37kg.

When you see sizes you're not used to all at once, it feels like inflation. At the bottom, when I stabbed the scissors visible on the right into its brain to calm its thrashing, it thrashed even more and destroyed the handle part. Too scary.

After this, if there were schools of fish, those with the stamina would cast, and we did this several times, and we finished fishing when the color of the sea and the color of the sky melted into the same color. Thank you for your hard work, or rather, I thought I was going to die, something like this!!

We returned to port and weighed them. First, starting with the individual that was thought to be the smallest by the looks of it. Mr. M, who caught it, said, 'Isn't this around 30kg or less?' and since it was coming from a hardcore angler, I thought, 'I see,' but it was 40kg. Huge.

Next, Mr. Katayama, this was also talked about as being in the 20kg range, but it was 37kg. Huge.

Next, the one I hooked, but since the weighing method is a hanging scale, it can't be weighed unless it's hung from a very high place. Naturally, there's no equipment like a horizontal bar in a park, so we use a method where we put a rope on the gaff handle, attach the scale, hook it through the jaw, and everyone lifts it together, but it took four of us to manage to measure it.

It was 63kg. It was heavier than I thought.

Next, the largest one, this is already 165cm in fork length (the length from the mouth to the center of the tail fin). When we tried to measure this with a rope and scale, we needed a height of about 215cm, so we had to give up on a full measurement. It was already well over 70kg while its tail was still touching the ground.

Then we had it butchered, the people who were going to take it came, and we disbanded. Thank you for your hard work.

When I got home and looked at the lure...

It's covered in scratches from one hit, and the hook on the belly is twisted. How terrifying.

Summary

・I finally achieved results, but next time I want to do it all by myself. Though, I probably won't be able to catch one this big again, so even if I hook another one, it'll be 20kg at most, which I think will be a breeze. ← No sign of remorse.
・This time, it feels like I could have finished it on my own if I had gone for a power game once it surfaced. Perhaps it was a matter of knowing how to commit to the fight, but I wish the rod had a bit more power. Also, I think it would have been easier to win if I had used size 6 line or about 100lb test and set the drag to around 9kg. It's important to have the courage to commit when there's a chance to win, and the preparation that serves as the basis for the confidence to back that up. That applies to fishing, other hobbies, and even work.
・The patch processing I've been working on is now complete, or rather, I think I've finally finished identifying the areas where errors are likely to occur. It feels like it took nearly three years and over a million yen in learning costs to get to this point.
・This time, the knot between the leader and the main line, as well as the knot between the leader and the hardware, were both fine. If I catch another one, I feel like I'm finally seeing the stage where I can move toward mass production, or rather, increasing reproducibility in big game fishing. Though, at the point of casting into a boil, reproducibility is scarce... lol
・I feel like I've learned a little about yellowfin tuna and casting into boils. Especially where to cast. I need more experience with how to cast and how to move the lure. Also, 'inviting' (surface lure) fishing is a completely unknown world to me, so I want to practice that too.
・Also, when I asked Mr. M about the secret to casting into boils, his opinion was similar to my hypothesis. Read the direction the school is moving and cast accordingly. It seems the school repeatedly scatters and gathers again, so if they are splitting up and moving away, it's effective to cast toward where the large school is heading, and if they are gathering to surround a huge bait ball and attacking, it's effective to cast into the center of the boil and leave it alone.
・But I'm exhausted. Also, my whole body hurts when I wake up. Especially my right arm. It feels like Wekapipo's steel ball was thrown at my right side. I can barely even hold a spoon to eat curry. The overall fatigue is similar to the end of the period when I was working until the last train every day for three months around the time I turned 30. Well, of course I'd be tired after pulling with my whole body for 10 minutes. I need to get back in shape.
・Or rather, it would be faster to set up my gear so I can finish it in 10 minutes. Let's do that. I'll go with 100lb main line and an initial drag of about 8kg.
・Reflections for next time.
◆ Use OCEA8 or OCEA EX8 size 5 line. Set drag to 8-9kg.
◆ Use the Ultimo or 706LMG rod as much as possible.
◆ There are three key points for the fight.
1) Hooking: Do not slacken the tension until the fish goes into battle mode.
2) Fight: The basic posture is to extend your arms and lean back. If you can't reel, return to the basic posture immediately.
3) Fight when it surfaces: It seems the most important thing is to make it breathe air here and give up. To do that, you need a rod that won't lose in power, and reliable line strength and drag settings.

Next time, I will come prepared with perfect equipment. I hope I can catch another one.