My First Thresher
by Joe Lopez

We got to the launch at around 5.15am and the waves looked pretty crzy! I went out first and got soaked waiting for a set to slow down but made it fine without getting dumped. Trevor, well lets just say he's glad he had leashes. I paddled out just past the reserve, tied on a MirrOlure and trolled for about 15 minutes while Trevor finally made it out.

He tried to make bait there but nothing was happening so I suggested to try for bait closer to the Kelp. About halfway from the reserve line and the Kelp my MirrOlure goes off. It made an long first run. These two rookies were excited, blood pumping and all. I was finally gonna catch a yellow off a kayak, and feel what its like to get towed.

Well, I sure got towed for about a half hour. I would take a little and it would run a lot. At about 45 minutes into it I finally got it up to color. I could only make out what I thought was the tail but it was swinging around too much, it didnt look right. It didnt feel right either, in the second and third run, the drag wasnt flowing out, it was more like short spurts like maybe head shaking and taking drag at every head nod.(So I thought). I asked Trevor to try to get a better look and it took off screaming towards open ocean. I got it up to color again and I finally saw it, but to my surprise it was a tail hooked thresher shark. I looked over at Trevor like, what!?! This was crzy for 2 rookies to be fighting a shark, but hey you can't control what eats the lure so were excited. This would be a first for me.

Just past everyone, it finally went down and stopped there. Now this is about an hour and a half into this thing so I decided to tighten the drag and try and muscle it in. Well my rod thought otherwise. It snapped in half leaving 2 rings on to fight this guy. It was pretty funny so I heard, to watch me fight this thing with half a rod, but like a true warrior I was determined to land this fish. And again my rod thought otherwise and broke again this time leaving only one ring. This was getting weird now, but it wasnt making anymore runs so it was just a matter of getting it up. And there I was timing the waves to gain line and finally I had it up. It was totally lifeless so I decided to take it in. I dont know how but me and Trevor managed to get the thing on to my yak and started heading in.

After the long paddle back the waves were still pretty big. I was waiting it out to time coming in but got distracted by some tourist kayakers and when I saw the openning to go in I told Trevor and paddled in. That distraction caused me to be about 10 feet away from Trevor and just enough to get caught in a wave. Not a huge wave, but with the shark on board it caused the nose to bury and I flipped. Lucky for me the shark had a bright neon yellow rope around its tail and managed to rescue that. But I did mourn the loss of a Penn spinning reel and rod, and the broken rod with its wallmart spinner.

Back on the beach I was pissed for the loss but all the tourists asked questions so that made me forget the reels. I went over to Jim Sammons to see if I needed to take any special care of it. After giving me a hard time about it being kinda small he made some suggestion on where to take it. I was a bit hurt by his joking but when I came back I saw it, it was kinda small.

I decided to get home quick and ice it down. That took for ever to carve up not to mention the mess. Jim had suggested to take it to this place in Mission Bay to get it carved up, but no, I had to do it my way.

Anyway, it was a great adventure and both Trev and I learned alot.

No more spinning reels for me.
Need to get some rod leashes.
If its thresher get it cut up by a pro to avoid the mess.
Future thresher, too much trouble. Do mouth to mouth if needed to get him back home.*
If your a rookie... Listen to the more experienced guys out there whenever possible(Eagle Eye, YakAtak, Iceman and did I mention...Jim Sammons. Just to name a few that I've met)