Christmas Eve rockfish.

Ran out of Kiptopeake Christmas eve morning with friend Darren and a couple of his friends, eels in tow. *All I wanted for Christmas was a fish over 40 pounds. *We each rigged and watched a rod but my rod was getting bit more often. I reeled in 2 fish in the 35 pound range and one of the others reeled in one about the same. The bite got slower and my rod bent over again! I handed it off to one of the others who had not gotten any bites and sure enough it was a 47 inch 44 lb. fish :-/ *Big fish of the day. the bite continued and we caught about 6 more in the 30 to 39 lb. range including a 45 inch fish that I released that was about 37 lbs. on the hand scale. 9 of 12 fish came on my rod. Some good JUJU on that rod I guess..
Nice quality fish! Sure hope they hang around for awhile I really would like one over 40..