My friend Josh and I met Tom at his secret spot last night and soaked baits from sunset to 11pm. High tide was at 8:30pm and the surf wasn't too bad. Most of the night was kelp free until the last hour when the current picked up with the outgoing tide. Lobster bites kept us alert. Several of our mackerel heads came back picked clean and occasionally the hook would come back empty.
Close to high tide I hooked into something not very heavy, but when I got it close to shore it pulled hard to the side. Soupfin! Josh and I got our lines tangled up a bit, but we were able to get it sorted out, take a pic, and release the fish without too much time going by. It taped out at 52 inches.
Soupfin Shark
An hour or two after high I got another hit, but honestly I thought it was a lobster until I tightened up my line. When I put some pressure on it, whatever it was woke up, and it was game on! The fight didn't take too long, and Tom waited patiently for an opportunity to grab it's tail in the surf. My first sevengill!
Sevengill Shark (
species #498)
Tom cursed my circle hook, but it came out fairly easily. We grabbed a measurement in the split second that the shark was willing to straighten out, and it was a solid 81 inches. Not bad at all!
We kept the shark close to the water so the release went quickly, and he swam off without an issue. At this point we had about an hour left to fish, so I rerigged and Josh fished my rod as well as his. Unfortunately, he didn't get any non-lobster bites. Tom was in the same boat, and his only consolation was pulling in one of the lobsters at the end of the night (it was released).
Thanks Tom and Josh for helping out with landing sharks and taking photos. It was pure luck that I got the bites, but I'll take it. It certainly takes the sting out of all those skunk sessions last year.
