Bamfield… The Big One... That Happily Got A Way

[jriptide]

Just had a crazy experience fishing Halibut near Bamfield. I think I now have an idea of what it must be like to hook into a big Bluefin Tuna. I was jigging for halibut 7 miles off Cape Beale with my line down about 260ft deep, when my line got hit hard...and I mean hard, like nothing I had ever experienced and my line started spooling out full speed. This with a heavy drag setting on a 20T Penn International with 100lbs test. So it was pretty freaky to see line spooling off at such a high speed. Within what seemed like seconds my line went from the bottom to the surface about 150 yards straight out from the boat, at which point I saw a large dolphin break the surface. It went ballistic jumping and running all over the place, after close to spooling my line, it finally snapped off. Hopefully the dolphin will be okay. The whole time it was going crazy on the surface it had a buddy right beside it.

 

[fshnfnatic]

Wow! Never heard of someone actually hooking a dolphin.I wonder if you may have foul hooked it somehow?Hooked a
baby seal once while jigging for Rock Cod on a shallow reef with a small chrome buzzbomb on a trout rod and 10 lb. test.
That thing ran like nothing I'd ever hooked before,the reel just screamin',and spooled all 150 yds. of line I had in about 30 seconds flat,jumping
at the last second as my line snapped off the empty spool.I was thinking the same thing as you about that's how a
giant Bluefin must feel like.

 

[getbent]

Super cool....

 

[mkcj]

We hooked a seal once, that was just like pulling a log the wanted to stay away from the boat, didn't run like your dolphin did, something you'll never forget I'm sure.

 

[tykkyt e blue]

I can imagine the pull!
I am pretty sure a porpoise grabbed a 7" plug sideways in its mouth once ( curious maybe? its sonar would tell it that plug was hollow)
I had 300 yds of braid and 300yds of mono on the reel - was barely 30 yds left when it let go

 

[Peahead]

"like nothing I had ever experienced and my line started spooling out full speed"

Oh I hear you on that one......

...several years ago trolling the hump/Bowen Island and a few dolphins cruised by on the surface but then made an aggressive turn toward my boat and then dove down behind the boat ....seconds later a rod just pounds like crazy and instantly line is peeling off my reel far far faster than anything I had exerienced before ( and I had Tuna fished prior). The slack time after a rod pops off the clip was non existent as the reel instantly was screaming, mutiple times faster than any salmon. At the time my mind didn't connect to the fact that I had just seen the dolphins and so because this was so different and my mind hadn't seen this before, it couldn't compute what was happening. I was actually too frightened to grab the rod and had no idea a shimano could spin that fast ....I just stood there while the line peeled and then "ping" at the end of the line. There I stood completely spooled with a dead confused stare. When I finally grabbed the rod and reel , the spool was so hot it could burn. I'll never forget that.

 

[Grace underfire]

Funny. Same thing happened to us yesterday. Hopefully the dolphin will be ok.

 

[jriptide]

Funny. Same thing happened to us yesterday. Hopefully the dolphin will be ok.

Guess it is more common than I thought, Based on past experiences with them playing around downriggers I always thought they were to smart to get hooked.