Hit the sand with Verne's crew to test drive my new Fathom 30.
The first cast did not bode well for the day, but in the end proved to be the bad with the good. As this was the 1st cast with the new reel, I didn't bother with more than a 5 oz pyramid, nice cast, no blow-up.... first crank of the handle, and the sinker wont budge a bit. ended up losing the shockleader and sinker.
Oh well, time to re-rig. New leader, new clipdown running rig, and a mac head hit the surf. 45 minutes later, Bump, Bump, click, click, I notice something poking at my bait. Just as I grab the rod, Drag starts screaming and the fish immediately starts heading down the beach right towards some swimmers. Denny starts running interference for me getting the few swimmers out of the water.
This fish takes me 150 yds down the beach just steaming along.
15 minutes of back and forth, and Denny finally drags the beast onto the sand. We slap a tape on it, 50.5 in's of unhappy Bat. It turns out that along with the Ray, I was fighting about 50 lbs of grass and kelp.
Fished for another 2.5 hours or so for nada, but not a bad way to break in a new reel.