Ah, the seal

I have lost more than my share of fish to the seal, but twice I actually hooked a seal on herring, and once even played one out to the point that I could have netted it no problem - all I did was grab my lead and bust him off, though. This was back when I used to mooch out of a rowboat. Hooked this bugger at 0 dark 30, and at first thought I had a mondo king, then thought the seal had my king when he finally came up 100 yards away, and when it finally got light enough to see, I could tell he had my leader down his gullet with no king in sight. With the combination of the light boat I was in and the relatively slow accelleration curve of the seal compared to a salmon, I was able to tighten my drag down all the way and let him tow me around against the spring of the rod. In about 20 minutes I had him gasping on the surface. If I wouldn't have been right out in front of about 500 houses I might have been tempted to get out the club, but lactic acid buildup and a couple mooching hooks was all the pain I dared administer to him. Oh darn, did I just admit to harrassing a seal