There aren’t a lot of second chances in life or fishing. Big fish get that way because they’re smarter and tougher than the rest of their brethren. Typically, if you don’t convert that one big bite, you don’t get a second opportunity, especially on the same fishing trip.
Recently, pro kayak angler Kwanza Henderson defied all odds. After missing not one but two opportunities at greatness, Kwanza proved that the third time is a charm in landing this monster snook recently in his home waters off the Florida coast.
I got to the spot around 6:30am so that I could catch bait. At that time finger mullet were running. I cast out my net a few times and caught half a dozen finger mullet and decided it was time to get in the water. At 7:15am I’m thinking, “I hope the action stays hot.
Once I got in the water I started using a few crank baits, but no bites. I took out a finger mullet and put a line out behind my kayak to troll, really close to the docks. I heard a loud scream, reached for my camera to press record and grabbed my rod out of the rod holder. As I’m reeling the catch in the line snaps. At this time I’m excited because I just got hooked up because I tried something i never did, which was trolling live bait. So I circled back around to give it a go. Boom my bait gets hammered and I see a big splash as I reached for my rod. The force was SO violent that it snapped the line again.I was excited, but frustrated as well because I didn’t get any footage yet. At about 10:30am the bite usually stops. I took a break to tie on some 80lbs leader to replace the 60lbs I was using. I received a call from a friend and started giving him the run down about my day so far. I told him “I’m going to troll one more time before I go home. I don’t think anything else is going to bite.” I hung up the phone, went back to the top of the lake and decided to troll next to the dock with my last live mullet.
Photos: Kayak Angler (top), Adventure on the Water (above)
