| Oceanside Thresher Report: 7/3/05
Left Oceanside @ 6:30am...nice scoop of 'dines with a few mixed mackerel (thanks, Bo). Water temp was 64 and milkshake brown at the harbor...headed for Carlsbad powerplant.
Five miles off temp broke to 67. Noticed mini-macks balled up all over. Put the jigs in and went for a donut.
When I came back up on deck, one of the crew said, "I think one of the jigs is getting smacked!" It was pretty clear he was right b/c the rod was jumping.
We threw the boat out of gear and the fight was on. It was obvious from the start it was a thresher.
We had her on the surface for two and half hours with two anglers trading out (props to Stan and Art). She then burned off 500 yards of line straight down and it was all over.
After another hour (with 25 lbs of drag on the TLD 30), we brought her on board. Once she was in the cockpit, I noticed the jig was gone but couldn't figure out how that could have happened. Upon further inspection, turns out the wire leader on the Bait-o-Matic had broken below the factory crimps.
Luckily for us, the main line and wire leader had biminied themselves together early on in the fight. The remaining portion of wire had only three strands left! We were just that close to losing her after an entire afternoon of fighting.
The jig was a small sacrifice for a such a perfect day out on the water. She was 11' 10" and 290 lbs at the scales.
*NOTE TO OTHER THRESHER CHASERS: These fish fight long and hard and will push your terminal tackle to the limit. Our lady max'd out our TLD 30 and custom troller (Big Thanks To Master Builder, Steve) and absolutely decimated the wire leader!
Hope this helps. Tight Lines - Jonny D | 
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(pay your o-side angler fee just in case). Glad you were one of the few to actually pull off a landing evenwith the leader failure. Osprey has certainly got the fish ju-ju.
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