The hardest hit I ever had was fishing off Cape Lookout, N.C. about 38 years ago. It was a hot, hot, hot early September day. We had been trolling for hours and hours. I was just a kid. I was holding on to my rod and was almost asleep in the gentle swell and heat. All of a sudden, my rod just about gets ripped right out of my hands. Literally, it pulls me straight toward the back of the boat. My arms go fully extended and it pulls me to my feet and two steps to the transom. I look way out in back of the boat and see this skyrocketing king mackerel. It seems to me that it was 10 feet in the air.

The drag must have been set to pay out only in case of nuclear blast. Just as I was thinking that I would have to let go of the rod or be pulled out of the boat, the line went completely slack and I was on by little hind end in the back of the boat. I reeled the line in and the really stout hook on this big bucktail jig-like thing was completely straightened out. That was one heck of a hit!