So it's Bat Fight night and Mike has been hyping up how much time on the sand he will be having today. I'm a little jealous since I have some obligations that I have to take care of before I can wet a line. I get to the sand around 6:30pm to find minimal surf and weedless conditions.
I setup two rods north of Mike and Andre who have been fishing since 2pm. I hear that they both have landed a few bat rays, which is weird since we haven't seen many bat rays caught all year.
(Mike said the big bat he caught was the toughest fish he has ever fought. I will let him tell that story)
I put mac on one rod and squid on the other. About an hour into the soak I see Mike's rod go bendo and he is fighting what he thought was a 7gill, but it turns out to be a medium size surf bat. As I watch Mike bring this fish ashore I see my squid rod go bendo too. I get to it and tighten up the drag and wind down. I can fill it's a shark but it's fighting weird, after a couple of minutes I get it into the white water. As Andre helps tail grab this leo it turns and bites his jacket, this little guy was not a happy camper. I then realize why this fish was fighting weird, because I foul hooked it in caudal fin.
About 30 minutes later, I see my Mac rod do a little dip and I pick it up to see if anything was on. As I wind down to take out the slack I feel pressure on the other end. This fish takes off and I feel a nice initial run and head shakes. The shark starts charging the sand and I tell Mike that I think it's a leo, but then I see some tail slaps on the surface. As I get her into the surf I can see it's a 7gill. Mike does a quick tail grab and tape and she measures out to be 72" long.
About a half an hour later Andre gets a 60" 7gill too. I'll let him tell how it fought.
I packed it up at 11pm sad to not have contributed anything to the SD Bat crew total, but I did get one fish closer to Mike and pass up WMB on the leaderboard! SiXTEEN!
Rest up guys, and let's get ready for the Grinner Gathering!
