Two for One

"FISH ON!" shouted the client as he leaned into the reel handle.

  "Crank, crank, crank!" I shouted back, watching his rod tip to determine what kind of bottom fish he was dealing with.

  We were halibut fishing at Jurassic Park ( a place we have named for the amount of huge fish caught there), hoping for a two hundred  pound halibut.

  Rock fish usually come before the halibut, and the "Park" is teeming with big Ling Cod.

  "Looks like a rock fish," I commented to a client standing near me. The rod was not bent all that far over and was jiggling like  a rock fish wiggle.

  I turned my back to bait a hook of another client when the guy reeling shouted, Captain, the line is not coming in!"

  "It has to be," I said as I made my way to his bending rod.

  Sure enough his rod was bent double like a big fish and the drag was spinning instead of bringing in line.

  "What in the world?"

  "I was reeling in just fine and all of a sudden the rod bent way over and the line stopped coming in," he replied.

I tightened his drag as much as I thought the 90 pound test line would handle left him to his reeling.

  "Use the waves to help you pump the fish in," I offered, "Don't just try to muscle him all the way or you'll burn your arms out.

We were fishing in 350 feet of water and that is a long, long way if you try to muscle a fish all the way as fast as you can reel.

  It took quite a while before the line gave signs of the fish getting close to the boat.

  I grabbed the line with my gloved hands and began gently working the fish out of the depths below the boat.

  "It's a rock fish," said one client, but instantly the other client leaning over, said, "it's a Ling Cod."

  As the fish came into my view there was quite a sight. Two fish in one!

  Sure enough the client had hooked a big Yellow Eye Rockfish, but soon after hooking it a huge Ling Cod swallowed it head first.

  I grabbed the leader and lifted both fish into the boat. The Ling Cod was not hooked at all but refused to let go of his hard earned meal.

I worked the hook out of the rock fish and we took many pictures of the Rockfish Ling Cod combination.

 The Ling Cod was much too large for our slot limit so we had to release him.

  We were catching several Yellow Eye Rock fish so I asked the clients if they would allow me to leave the rock fish in the Ling Cod's mouth so he could finish his hard earned meal. We all agreed.

  It was fun watching the big cod swim out of sight with a big orange rock fish firmly inside his mouth.

  It's not every day you can catch a two for one like that.