I went out of seward yesterday in search of some halibut and rock fish. We did really well on the rock fish but we had no luck on the halibut and had some very strange stuff happen. I know this will sound like a typical "fish story" but I figured somebody who knows the biology and whats swimming around down there may be able to give some insight.
We were anchored up just south of Rugged Is in about 250-300 ft of water. I dropped my down rigger with a chum bag on it like I always do. Let it hit the bottom and then cranked it up about 5 full cranks. Dropped bait on the rods and settled in. About 30 mins later the down rigger starts doing a little dance. I've seen it before and its usually the start to the feeding frenzy when I land on some fish. Ill pick it up and move it around to get the fish away from it and onto the bait. Well I went to start cranking it up and got about 2 or 3 full cranks of the handle and the line tightened up big time. Then the arm started flexing and popping and creaking, not 15 seconds later the base explodes and the down rigger gets ripped off the side of the boat and into the depths. It wasn't moving back and forth just straight down and I could see it flexing up and down like it was being pulled. My question is what is that strong and could have gotten ahold of it? It had I believe 400 ft test wire on it and an 8lb ball.
We were anchored up just south of Rugged Is in about 250-300 ft of water. I dropped my down rigger with a chum bag on it like I always do. Let it hit the bottom and then cranked it up about 5 full cranks. Dropped bait on the rods and settled in. About 30 mins later the down rigger starts doing a little dance. I've seen it before and its usually the start to the feeding frenzy when I land on some fish. Ill pick it up and move it around to get the fish away from it and onto the bait. Well I went to start cranking it up and got about 2 or 3 full cranks of the handle and the line tightened up big time. Then the arm started flexing and popping and creaking, not 15 seconds later the base explodes and the down rigger gets ripped off the side of the boat and into the depths. It wasn't moving back and forth just straight down and I could see it flexing up and down like it was being pulled. My question is what is that strong and could have gotten ahold of it? It had I believe 400 ft test wire on it and an 8lb ball.
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