The One That Didn't Get Away...

All week there's been offshore breezes blowing.
Great for kite or bag fishing.
This is one of the reasons people come to Tokerau Beach in New Zealand's Far North.
Thursday afternoon my bag was out about 700 metres, sitting up and looking good. The reel containing one kilometre of heavy line was firmly embedded in the sand on the beach.
Well, it was one minute.
The next, it was being pulled through the sand, down the beach and out to sea.
A monster fish?
We all watched as the bag raced further and further out. What might be the reel was seemingly floating about 500 metres out.
The wind appeared to die out. There was only one chance.
My two-person kayak came off the roof and Carl paddled out through the surf with me.
In a couple of minutes we were out too far and the reel wasn't in sight.
It wasn't a good place to be.
Back we came into an again freshening wind.
I had a cellphone, a VHF radio and we were wearing lifejackets.
When you come through the surf, you have to time it exactly right.
It had been an exhausting paddle back, we paused to rest a moment and then, fortunately at the right moment, we paddled, caught a good sized wave that took us straight in to the sand.
And the bag sat there. On the horizon.
I phoned a friend, who had a friend with a fishing charter boat.
Pete was going out there on his launch Snapa Slapa early the next day.
If it was still there, which was highly unlikely,
he'd get it.
And there it was. Incredibly, in the same place.
It took him an hour to retrieve the bag, the line and the reel, winching it aboard from the reef where it was stuck, four kilometres out.
This whopper of a fishing tale is true.
Really it is...