The “Hawk” version of PEI

**Agitated88** · 09-28-2011 11:47 AM

Pretty freaking impressive, congrats!!!

**Capt Hawk** · 09-28-2011 05:42 PM

Here is the story. We hooked the fish at dusk it made four good runs deep into the backing and then stopped fighting. We thought it was a much smaller fish. After 30 minutes we were at a dead stop with the fish strait down but it was not moving around a whole lot. We than began retrieving the line inches at a time. When we saw the leader I was ready at the gunnel with the harpoon but because it was dark I could not see into the water well. I started to leader it with one hand and I saw the tail come strait out of the water like it was on and elevator. I was so confused I dropped the harpoon and grabbed the tail rope and looped it around the tail. Just as I made the loop I started to cleat it off and the leader broke, I almost lost a finger. After boating it I realized we gut hooked the fish and at some point the fishing ling wrapped around the tail and we must have dragged it backwards until it drown.
It took us an hour and forty minutes to get it to the boat and tail rope it and almost two hours to get it into the boat. Once the tail rope was on it we pulled it forward to the tower leg and tied the tail rope to it .We bent two gaffs trying to pull the head up to get the head hook in it. We had to pull it up the tower tail first so we could reach the head put the head hook, a rope thru the mouth and out the gills. The drop the tail back into the water, spin the fish around and attach the head to the block and tackle and lift it into the tower. Once the head was kissing the tower cross brace we attempted to pull the tail over the gunnel.With the weight of the two of us and the fish it was only a 16 inch lift but it we could not do it so we called a friend that was not too far away to lend us a second block and tackle. Good thing we did because it probably would have pinned one of us under it trying to lower it into the blanket.