I met Mako through the Tag It fish tagging program and we talk story over text all the time. You can follow his feel-good IG posts @makosr. He likes to shorecast with “da Uncles”, making sure they’re safe when they’re landing fish at the water’s edge at night. He even brings live oama for the crew. Mako caught his personal best shore cast fish and relayed the details back to me over text message.
Mako: At first strike, scream my Penn Senator. I all ready knew was one Ulua. But my stiff Ozone pole brought it in in about 15 minutes. Seemed like 30 minutes tho. 🙂
Anyway I hardly fish for Ulua. Mostly small game, more fun. Ulua Fishing is really slow n boring!! Well, for me that is. What got me to slide bait was because I ran out of bait in freezer. BUT, I had 2 pieces of eel about 4 months old. My friend always let me use his tako but this time I actually wanted to go with Uncles and sit n cruze. Was lazy already. So I cast out only one pole. Slide my eel. And figure ok time to relax and talk story this time. Instead of always checking my poles. Catch baby eels etc. Not two hours in, my ratchet just took off like I never heard before. I grab my pole n felt its head shaking. That’s when I knew was Ulua!
The fish weighed 15lb, my first ulua. Dream fish, I’m having it Gyotaku’d. I cut it up in my small kitchen and gave it away. My next dream is to tag n release one.
Amazing! Congratulations on the first and PB ulua! Chee!
Right on Mako! I dabbled in slide-bait many years ago. I mostly whipped and dunked bait before that, and like you, mostly for small kine stuff. I never thought I’d ever catch an ulua. One day, about 3 months into my slide-bait career, I finally did. Fast forward about 10 years, and I’ve transitioned to fly fishing, which is a whole different world. But I still look back fondly at that night, and am happy to say I’ve caught at least one ulua. Congrats, man, savor it!