Beast mode - 4/13-4/14/22

[Jigman13]

Hit the Raritan River last night b/c bayshore fishing for stripers has sucked a fat one the last few days. Where the F are the bunker????

Anyhow, i was throwing the usual plugs and soft plastics from 10:30 till 1 AM--and OH BOY DID SH*T GO DOWN!

At around 12:40/45 AM my plug got smoked. I mean SMOKED. I was fishing light with a 7'6 medium action rod and 2500 ballistic spooled w #15 braid and a #14 fluoro leader. Needless to say, my spool slowly and steadily got dumped upriver, across the river, a little bit down river, back up river, back towards me... rinse and repeat... for like 10-15 mins. About 2/3 of the way through the fight I click my headlamp on as the fish was sticking to the surface. There she was, in her big fat-back pig glory-- a stellar, humungo pure strain SKIIIIIII.

Then the "oh sh*t factor" immediately sunk in. I'm f'ed. Kept pressure on with the light drag, rod tip high. She thrashed her head in my light beam and I can see the front 1/3 of the plug sticking out of her mouth and the rest pinned to the front of her top jaw. She was stuck good, and fairly safe for the time being. As she tired I walked her further and further and further downstream until I got to an area where I thought I could land her a little bit more easily.

As I got her to my feet, I reached in with my lip grippers but noticed her mouth was pinned shut so out the window go the lip grippers. She was swimming in circles and on one of her circles I switched the rod to my right hand, reeled down tight and swooped in with my left hand and death gripped her tail. It was over... done deal. I opened the bail, slid her up on the bank and she spazzed a little, popping the hooks out clean with one thud. Crazy stuff.

Brought her up to a fairly flat surface, pulled out the tape and measured her as best as I could. Just about 46" and THICKKKKKKK--a new PB for me by about an inch--and def fatter. Got her back to the water's edge and snapped a few shots of her in the water and took a 6 sec release video. It took about 8+ mins to get her going but she swam away strong--fighting to get out of my grip on her tail.

After all was said and done, I was shot and borderline hyperventilating lol. And I was gushing blood outta my fingers from either a tooth or gill raker. Drove home, washed up and immediately pounded a couple beers to take the edge off. It was a good night. This one is for you, Lard! Pics below...