The Grinner Gathering ended on a high note.
I showed up around 6pm to find the beach already packed with PS folks. I'm not sure I met everyone - sorry if you were there and I didn't end up meeting you. I set up next to Joe closest to the reef, which turned out to be a good spot for me because the current wasn't strong there, so my rig didn't get pulled around too much. Joe let me borrow a rod holder and a glow stick, which I was very grateful for.
Mike offered to let me use one of his surf rods, but when I heard how slow the fishing was I decided to stick with my 10' MH travel rod and baitfeeder spinning reel packed with 40 lb braid. My hope was to get a leopard shark, smoothhound, or moray for my lifelist. Sevengills or soupfins could wait until another time. I used store bought mackerel on an 8/0 J-hook, 135 lb nylon coated steel leader, and 100 lb mono abrasion leader. Weight was a 4 oz pyramid sinker on a sliding rig. I wasn't casting as far out as other people, but it wasn't too bad because the braid came off the reel pretty smoothly. The waves pulled my sinker back and forth quite a bit, but the current wasn't strong enough to actually move it any noticeable distance.
Fishing was slow. I had a couple baits chewed on by lobsters. Twice I think I had an actual fish pull out my line, but when I tried to set the hook nothing was there. Salad was annoying, but honestly wasn't too bad.
By about 11pm everyone had left except for Tom, Joe, and me. Joe wandered off down the beach looking for critters, so Tom came down to fish next to me. As we were chatting something pulled hard on my line, and I ran to my rod, but when I tried to set the hook, nothing was there. A half hour later something took my line again, and this time I got to my rod more quickly, and when I set the hook it was FISH ON! Whatever it was was stripping line off my reel pretty quickly. Tom yelled at me to run down the beach away from the reef to try to keep it from getting into the rocks. He reeled in his line to avoid tangles. My reel was getting dangerously low, so I started thumbing the spool to try to stop it. The situation wasn't looking good, when all of the sudden my line went completely slack. Tom yelled, "reel reel reel!" and I packed nearly half of the line back on the reel before I felt the weight of the fish again. This happened twice more, but each time I was getting more line back on the reel, so it looked like I would win. Tom spotted the fish and yelled "shark!", and he waded out and grabbed it's tail.
69" female soupfin, the biggest fish I've ever caught and first shark I've caught from shore.
I completely skunked out on my original three targets, but that's quite alright haha. This was a night I'll never forget!
Thanks Tom for organizing this, and again it was great meeting everyone! Can't wait until we can get out again.
