Photo of Author Brian Struttmann with a kingfish caught at the beach!
Every fisherman has told their fare share of fish stories. EXAGERRATION, sometimes subtle, sometimes well overblown, is usually a fish tales’ mainstay. But who’s to blame us. We fisherman run on adrenaline. This is the chemical we eat, breathe, and try to sleep with. It can drive our fishing addiction to the point of insanity, but enough of what we all know, live, and dream. I call this fish tale, “A King for a Day”.
Life’s responsibilities have kept me from fishing for months. I don’t like leaving our two little wonderful gremlins for just my wife to handle, but she told me to go, even that I needed it. So I did what every husband knows you must do. I listened to her and went quickly. I brought two rods. A heavy action spinner with a stinger rig for the kings I have seen skyrocketing daily at the beach, and a smaller twelve pound setup for snook. You all know the rig, one ounce egg sinker, swivel, eighteen inches of forty pound fluoro, and a three ought circle hook. Standard snook fare. And don’t forget the sabiki rod. It was roughly seven o’clock. I threw the sabiki till my arm almost fell off, only to get one hornbelly, not a preferred bait by any means, but usable in a pinch. I tried to get him to swim out on his own with the stinger rig. He was back on the sand in minutes. I said forget it, retired the kingfish rod and released the dreaded bait. I told myself one more sabiki cast and back to the family. I hooked something that fought like a small spanish mackeral. I had foul hooked a beastly twelve inch croaker. I put him right on the snook rig, as my confidence level soared. I knew I was getting a forty pound snook.
Three minutes in the trough, I felt him vibrate and bam. The fish flew out of the water as I was looking down the beach ( to see who was watching) , of course only to look back and see the after splash.Two hundred and sixty five yards of twelve pound mono was gone in seconds. I thought my spool was going to pop off my reel. I did all I could. I waded out neck deep, tightened the drag two clicks, and hoped for a fishy u- turn. He stopped like I was snagged on a rock, and held there for ten solid minutes. I’d gain a couple feet, only to lose it right back. He almost spooled me ten times. I’m talking less than ten feet of line left. Even when I would get him close, he would run all my line back out in seconds. A hero by the name of Skylar saw my struggle from down the beach. He didn’t hesitate to jump in the water with me. I would get the fish almost close enough for him to grab it, much less see it, and another sixty yards of line would be gone. This happened at least ten times.
Skylar finally saw it, looked me dead in the face and said your not gonna believe this. It is a monster Kingfish. My already elevated anxiety and panick went through the roof because I knew what it was and I knew it wasn’t over. I thought to myself, if he gets away no one will ever believe me. The beast would see Skylar’s legs, and run another thirty yards of line out. This happened at least ten more times. Forty five minutes later, Skylar dove in,grabbed his tail with both hands, and struggled to carry the beast up the beach. The crowd that had gathered behind me screamed and clapped. People screamed and cheered from the hotel balconies. We stared in stoke and disbelief. God was with me today. This was my day to be king, and probably my first fish story free of exaggeration. It was epic. He measured fifty six inches. Weight unknown.