I normally don't post reports from skunkings but last night was such a mess that I figured I ought to describe it. After a rough couple of months where I hadn't had much time to hit the surf or fish for much other than the occasional Spottie session, I finally. decided to head back out and give sharking a try. I hadn't been able to find any Macks for bait anywhere (it seems like I catch a few whenever I'm fishing for anything else, but always have trouble finding them when I need some) and even struck out trying to catch a few small bat rays. I instead caved in and bought a couple from Zion market. I've never liked using the grocery store macks; they always seem too clean and not slimy/bloody enough but I tried juicing them up with some pro cure to add some extra scent. Showed up to my first spot I did well at last year at around 7:30pm. I don't know if the beach had lost a lot of sand since last fall or something, but within ten minutes I hung up and lost BOTH rigs on BOTH rods. Two brand new rigs I had tied earlier that day, worth probably $40 in total gear between the hooks, wire, sputniks, swivels, rub leader, and about 200 total yards of freshly spooled mono (for some. reason both rigs broke off close to the shore). Words don't describe how frustrated I was. I respooled both of the reels and hastily tied up a few new rigs before recasting. Almost immediately I recognized the dreaded familiar pulling of salad fouling up the line. There was almost no salad on the beach but for some reason I couldn't keep a bait in the water for more than a minute before it started to get dragged around and I would need to haul in 40lbs of soggy dead weight. I finally gave up after being at the spot for over 2 hours and maybe having my lines in the water for 10 minutes of that time.
I then moved to another popular spot a bit south and found that the sand had disappeared as well. It was a struggle even finding somewhere to stick my sand spikes in; I could only push them through a few inches before they hit solid rock and wouldn't go any further. I cast out both of my lines again and although there was no salad, the current at the spot was ripping and still pulling line off the clicker within minutes. Add a couple horrible backlashes on top of everything and it was no time at all before I threw in the towel. Possibly my most frustrating session to date, and one that left me with absolutely no clue what's going on or where to go from here. I can live with putting in time and catching no fish, but not even being able to really fish and spending the whole time battling conditions and gear issues is another story. Very frustrating and thought I'd update.