So I met up with Steve at the beach to almost perfect conditions. Low surf, few to little weeds, super clean water... and few people on the beach due to it being pretty chilly out there!
We soaked a few hours and just at sunset I thought I saw my rod twitch. I needed to check my bait anyway and soon as I took 2 steps towards the rod, it doubled over and started screaming clicker! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The fight did start collecting a crowd of stragglers still on the beach and the fish broke water. Definitely not a 7-gill, but seemed more Soupfin. It ran my spool down 200 yards a few times as I was in my braid backing and couldn't get him to commit on heading towards the surf. He was also swimming in 45 degree angles rather than the usual soupie "up and down" the beach, but I did have a small clump of grass on my line which might have caused that.
In either case, usually when a shark is on for this long of a fight now, we usually get him to the beach but this one didn't want to quit and I felt the tell tale signs of rubbing on reef, then it stopped dead. Friggand sinker felt like it wedged into the reef and I felt the shark fighting me and what seemed like the weight. and after a few tail swings, my line went limp and he was gone.... That or his ass is attached to the reef by my rig as I lost about 3 feet of shock leader probably from his tail swiping it or more possibly just from the reef...
What a sick ass feeling... It doesn't get any better and maybe worse the older I get when I lose a big fish. ugh.....
Well, we fished the next 3 hours for a few critter bites and I did wind up on the board with a sub-legal Calico bass. Hardly any consolation from the one that got away, but at least I was on the plus side.
Until next tide!
