Well, another Tuesday was upon us and we made the north 5 commute to a shark spot. Conditions looked good, but there was still more people in the water than we would have liked, so we waited it out until it cleared enough to fish.
I was first on the board with a daylight moray eel. Thankfully, I shook the bastard off without having to give him a wood shampoo.
Steve and I had some bites, but it was generally pretty slow. I then get a big hit when I was attaching my light stick, but by the time I got the rod in my gut to fight it, it sheared me off on something. My knot to the shock leader was all good, but my 60# leader got sliced like butter. Steve was immediately bit also and wound up beaching this beautiful 6' Soupfin!
We got some new Batson Hats from my buddy Karry, so we paid our respects for the kind gesture.
The bite continued to get hot when I thought I had a small soupfin just to find a big old fat humpback leopard at the end instead!
Then Steve had an eel or something hang him up. He was trying to get it loose on some overhand pulls and his line just snapped leaving about 30 yards of his line out to sea! So Weird... but I helped by snagging his line and a lobster a few casts later.
Then Steve was on again! Another definite Soupfin! They are tough fuggers for sure.
After a 10 minute battle, I thought Steve was close to landing him and then my rod goes off! Double header! Sort of...
I yelled, "My line is going right!"... Steve replied "So is mine!"... and so on...
Once again we did the impossible. There were no tangles in our line, but somehow I stuck him in his tail and Steve stuck him in his mouth. I only get the assist, but Steve came away with another beautiful 6 footer!
My hook job in the tail...
I made a camera sand spike and get some killer shots of us and the shark.
Steve had to call it quits and I hung around to try and get another chance at a grinner. I was hoping to catch a Seven-gill shark to make the surf slam, but things were quiet. About 35 minutes after Steve left, I decided to call it quits and started packing. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, no doubt I got lucky and hooked another soupfin! It was an awesome fight and I think they may be the best fighters in the surf. they got it all, jumps... lightning fast runs.... just plain fun.
I felt him rolling up in my line a bit, but I had new shock leader on and was feeling pretty comfortable... Then a big roll and a big thrust of his tail and SNAP! GONE! Ugh...
the shock leader was frayed for 14 feet and I had about 18 feet of the 24 feet left of it. It was all sanded and mangled. I packed up and called it the night as it was getting late and I had to get up really early for work.
I usually use 80#, but ran out earlier this year and turned to using 60# since that is what I had available at the time. All of the big rays I've been getting on the 60 gave me a false confidence that it would hold to a big surf shark, but now I have first hand experience that it won't and not just someone telling me it won't. I'll be going back to 80# for my future trips... What a hard lesson to learn!
