June 2005. My fishing club charters a local boat for fluke. I take Ian and off we go. Now Curt knows how Ian talks the trash and outfishes me everywhere. So were fishing the morning away four wide across the stern of this old 1940's tub. We'll the other two guys go inside and its just me and the kid . Now all day we have been hanging up and losing rigs. This is the ultimate North Fork of long island rocky bottom. I pull up and put fresh bait on, bound and determined to kick the kids ass. Drop back down , maybe a minute goes by and the rod doubles over. Great another hang up, but something says reel. So I do and the line starts coming in. Then the Drag starts peeling off. Its a Calcutta 400 reel with the drag set around 3/4 full. Well this goes on for fifeteen minutes in less than 30 feet of water. This fluke which I still think is a bass at the time doesnt want to come up. Now I have a crowd except the mate with the net cant get through. Everyone is shouting huge fluke, over ten or twelve pounds. Now I'm in the port corner and the fish is in off the starboard corner but way out on the surface. The mate cant get through the crowd with the net. So stupid me decides to take another crank and get it closer. Bam it happens. On the rebait, I never wiped the slime off my hands, that combined with the sweat from the fight causes my hand to slip off the reel handle and the rod tip drops for a second , fluke shakes and is gone.
Ian trash talks me. Rydogg who works for me at the time doesnt let me forget it to this day. So this is why I think I deserve a jar of peppers.
