The one and only Dr. Julie Ball recently hooked a now-pending world-record spadefish (above).
Here’s her description of the catch:
Saturday, my buddy Capt Steve Wray gave me some gouge that he caught his limit of nice 7 to 8lb spades at a near shore wreck the day before. I smelled a record, and with the sporadic spade action this year, I wasted no time. Robin and I pulled out of Rudee by 6:30 am, and headed east onto glassy seas. When we arrived, spadefish were everywhere on the surface. As I took a closer look, they were the class I was looking for. We anchored up, and I broke out two light tackle rods, and began rotating them. Now, catching a 16-pound tautog on 8lb line seemed like a cake-walk compared to overcoming a runaway freight train of a spade on 4lb test! That’s some tough stuff, and requires a ton of patience. Several boats ventured over to see what we were up to. I’m sure they thought I was nuts. It took all day, and I threw back over a dozen small fish, broke off at least two dozen, but managed to get six fish to the boat that pushed over 7 pounds. Most fish took about 10 to 15-minutes to net. Before coming in, I couldn’t resist dropping a live bait on the wreck to see if anyone was home. I pulled up a big flounder, and into the box he went. Back at the local IGFA weigh station, Long Bay Pointe, only one of the six fish made the mark, whew! I am submitting the paper work to the IGFA as a pending 4lb Line Class World Record. The fish tipped the scales at 7-pounds, 6 ounces.
Reel: Shimano Stradic 2500
Bait: Clams, shrimp
Line: Ande, IGFA Rated, 4lb test
Line: (flounder) 30lb Power Pro
Leader: 15lb Yozuri Fluorocarbon
RSS 2.0
