Young Man and the Sea

15 year old Curtis House is feeling like Santiago did when he lost his big fish to the sharks in The Old Man and the Sea. He joined his family, his dad Garrett his mom Kim and his sister Megan. At 2:30 we had a really big bite on the long corner on our Polu Kai tube. I think the fish was looking at my big teaser I run short because the bite looked like it ate it going away. The fish jumped right away out of the giant hole that it left in the water and we knew what we were up against. The fish around 600 pounds made a fast run in shore and I turned and chased on it. The belly in the line closed up allowing us to get a bunch of line back. We filled the spool slowly until it was full again. The fish was tired after 40 – 50 jumps on the long run it made. It was so tired it was pin wheeling down deep. The reason we know that is that the line would be really tight and then get slack then when it would go away from us it would come tight again. The long corner mark came out of the water and everyone got their cameras ready. Brian got ready for the leader as the fish finished on its last circles. I eased back as it pulled and went slightly ahead as she came to us. As she came to us with less the 30 yards out we pulled the hook. Darn it! After all those jumps and recovering all that line we pulled the hook. We all couldn’t believe it but that’s fishing. Curtis asked what he did wrong and there was nothing any of us could have done she just wasn’t hooked good enough to get a tag in it. Curtis has many years of fishing left in his career so this one won the next one will be his.