After loosing a behemoth to faulty gear a couple weeks ago, it took all my powers to conquer the fear and return to my stomping grounds. I made my way out on foot. Surf is still kicking out head-high sets, so trying to fish the reef while standing in chest deep water is tough goings. I got a little nervous and couldn't quite make it out to the channel, rip was screaming, and I was on the edge of falling over and getting sucked out to deep water. I didn't like the feeling of impending death, but continued on just a little inside, balancing on a precipice, and casting into the murky, sinuous waves.
Post-landing and releasing a 18" halibut, I decided to go for the beach side of the rip. As I tromped through deep holes and up the beach slope, the smell of dead, decaying matter reeked, and I could tell the sand had buried a few feet of rotten kelp underneath. Every time I stepped forward, my foot sank through the spongy sand into this layer, and up came belching bubbles of sulfur-methane laden gas. Nasty! After getting farted on, I left for better fishing grounds.
Near a rocky outcrop, next to a deep water lagoon, I landed a keeper-sized halibut. Making my way in, I tripped and fell twice, head submerged, but managed to crawl may way out and keep the halibut on the line. I ran up the beach and landed the beast. Nice 22-incher. A family was amazed and asked to take pictures, which I handsomely obliged. Little kids came running up as I had the fish on shore, their father close behind, and I told them to "touch it". They reached out their tiny fingers and felt the slimy cold skin and giggled. Afterward, they said "Thank You" in the cutest choreographed voices at the behest of their Father.
I came away with mixed emotions. I made sure the children saw me free the halibut, and send it back into the sea, but, I could not help but feel the killer inside of me. The abuser dies with me. I will ride his back into Hell! No children will suffer any longer under my watch. No rotten father. Only good man.
The halibut jumped out of my hands at the last moment, landed in 2 inches of water, then skimmed the reef, and went zooming past me as I was making my way over jagged reef back to the rip, the deep hole. I laughed as the shadow of the fish could be seen, like a fighter jet, seeking out new territory, new prey.
