Hit it last night starting more than an hour before sunset from a newly found VC access point. Armed myself with some good looking squish and a couple monster macs, I'm talking close to state record size macs here
All conditions looked great... wind, weather, surf size, no salad, incoming tide, no people within earshot, all systems go. Since I hadn't fished this exact stretch of beach before, I decided to "leapfrog" using 2 set-ups, one rigged with squish, the other with mac, starting out about 100' apart, then alternating, moving each one 200' every 15 minutes or so, leapfrogging the other one, standing midway between the two when they where both set...So a bit over an hour into it the squish rod goes zzzzzzing and I do a 50' dash, put the reel in gear and hold on for a blistering initial run. Then it turns south and starts heading parallel to the shore, fortunately toward my other rod, which I manage to reel in and get it's rig out of the water so I don't double up. After over an hour in the trough (of missed prime time soaking for grinners as I saw it) I finally go out and hand hold drag her onto the sand and she tapes out at a thick 55". Would have been really stoked a few months ago with her, but at the moment I'm exhausted, it's now dark, & I just burned away that magic sunset hour fighting another friggin bat,this was not my target tonight...is what I was thinking.
Ho humm...
After a 10 minute rest to recoupe, back to it, but now mac chunks on both rods, there will be no more squish soaking tonight...A couple of hours, and a few hundred yards of covered beach pass by before the full moon starts to rise...and zzzzz, bendo, strong initial run, then the moment of truth...bounce, bounce, slap...yess!, then pop, slack line, and cussing, lots of hours invested into that...hook just pulled clean, damn! Only 30 minutes left before I'm pushing tow away and ticket time so I go to just my main rod and recast with the glow stick from my other rod tip now clipped on to the 6oz of lead & a BIG new mack head. My new rod loads and throws this very well...Before I can tighten up the slack and put the rod up in the holder I feel a pull much stronger than that initial set you feel when you tighten down to the sputniks grab. Then it seems like something just realized it had a hook in it's mouth and takes off on a strong, no turning it, powerful initial run, then bounce bounce,ping, slap, bounce, holding my breath.... still tension, Yesss! After about a 15 minute long, very respectable battle with alot of breath holding by me during head shaking and tail slapping runs, I see my glow stick come up into the skinny, loosen up my drag, put the rod in it's holder, and go down for the solo tail grab. I manage to drag him up into the dry sand, where he rolls, hence the sand covering him in the poor pics. I wished there was someone around to take some pics with me in a shot too but this 84" male Sevengill and myself are the only one's on the beach within miles. I drag him back into the skinny, rinse him off, resuscitate adequately, and watch his tail wake as he powers out into the trough. I went to sleep last night with a feeling of satisfaction.
