I was planning to work at my shop to finish my shop's website on Sunday (yesterday), but weather was so beautiful on Sunday and it seemed nobody could fish from Monday for a while due to bad weather.
I called my frined, Jimmy the Greek whether he could fish on Sunday. But he said he had some family obligation and told me he would get back to me after talking with his wife. But I knew he wouldn't resist once I said Sunday was the only day to sail for a week and he knew giants are biting out there.
When we left Bassriver, Cape Cod at 6:00 am, we had a high expectation as most boats had at least one giant on Sat though only big boats fished yesterday due to weather.
When we arrived at the ground, we saw at least 100 boats there as we expected.
See how many boats on the screen within one mile
It seemed pretty quiet as I saw no boat was fighting.
But Jimmy was confident giants would bite around high tide slack which is about 11:00 am as giant started bites around 10:00 am yesterday.
When I watched Jimmy's tackles and how he prepared rigs, I can tell he has lots of giant fishing experience.
He used mackerel and herring for baits. When I asked whether live baits wouldn't be better as we could catch live cod at the bottom.
He said giants prefer dead mackerel and herring now. You got to believe him as he has lots of commercial giants friends. We had all two giant bites on herring.
It looked giant fishing is not different from normal tuna chunking.
He used a couple of rods with sinker and balloon with a mackerel or sardine and put the bait down to around 90 ft deep where we marked giants mostly and one rod is ready without sinker.
I used my normal jigging setups.
I knew I was in trouble when a giant hit my jig as my jigging setup is not heavy enough as I didn't have time to pepare for giants and the primary purpose of this trip is to observe how they fish giants.
However, I felt I could land a giant under 500 lbs as I had over 600 yards of PE8, which has beaking point of 112 lbs on my B2 30 with 30 - 35 lbs drag at strike.
See the size difference of my giant jigging reel and regular giant reel 130.
For two hours after we drifted, it was deal calm though we marked giants occasionally. However, it was not boring as I kept myself busy by dropping my Sevenseas Hooker jig to to bottom and caught cod.
I could drop my 7 oz jig to the bottom to 250 ft as we had light wind and weak current though it was in full moon.
Some areas were so thick with cod and I could get cod bites as soon as my jig hit the bottom.
By 10 am, we saw birds working nearby and saw fins. The fin was big, but it didn't look like whale. Jimmy alerted to chum heavy and as soon as I tried to cast poppers, I heard singing sound of drag. Fish is on!! (Gladly I didn't cast my popper. Otherwise, I would have lost my expensive popper if the giant had took my popper.
)
we were ready to chase the fish while clearing all lines, but the fish didn't take line much. We thought it was a small 300 - 400 lbs giants as there are lots of 'rats' in the areas.
Jimmy moved the rod from stern to the bow and we took turns to fight the fish while Jimmy manuveured the boat. The fish fought strangely. It didn't take much line, but it didnt' come easily either. We started to realize this was not small fish at all as fight continued.
One boat nearby fighting a giant while we were fighting.
We marked giants pretty good while fighting.
Finally we saw color after one hour 30 mintues fight and Jimmy threw a harpoon while it was still deep as he didn't want to take chance.
The circle hook perfectly in the side of mouth and the leader line had any scratch at all.
In deed, it was not small giant at all. The fork length is 104 inches, but it was extremely fat. I just talked with Jimmy and he said it weiged 615 lbs dressed without head, guts, fin and tail. So the fish should weigh about 750 lbs.
There are a few more pictures of the giant.
After we secured the fish, we put baits down again while I continued jigging. Within 15 minutes, we had a massive hit. The fish just ran and ran. The 600 - 700 line on the 130 reel on 35 - 40 lbs drag almost were gone before we did anything.
When Jimmy finally start to chase it, the fish pooled the hook. :x
Jimmy said quietly it was definitely over 1,000 pound which he was looking for for a long, long time.
Jimmy was right. Bites started about 40 minutes before high tide, and good bites lasted only 2 - 3 hours.
Yes, it is indeed a life time experience. While I observed giant fishing, I had mixed feeling about jigging for giant.
When I saw a giant took over 600 yards on 35-40 lbs drag, it really discourage me jigging for them as there is little chance you have any line on my small reel when a big giant hit my jig.
But we were fighting a 750 lbs giant which didn't take much lines for some unknown reason and I had a feeling that I might can do it on my jigging setup as I can utilize my whole body to fight a giant.
Time will tell as I definitely will have a chance to hook up a giant on jigs in the near future after my first taste of giant on this trip.
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