Mike and I fished our usual Thursday night session yesterday. I got to the spot by 7:30pm to find Andre and Ben were already set up and putting some fish on the sand. I see Andre bringing in a little bat ray as I plant my sand spike. Ben was helping him out when I see Ben run over to his rod 70 yards south to set the hook on a decent size leo. After talking to Ben a bit he said that he missed a nice take down due to operator error.
I'm setting the first rod up and get a nice cast for once. As I'm setting up the second rod, the first rod gets a nice knock down and it's pulling line off the reel. I run and set down the second rod and pick up the first to find that the fish is off.
The bait is gone and my hook tip is broken.
I put out the second rod and start tying a new rig to the first rod when the second rod starts screaming. My line goes north and crosses Andre's line. I'm walking north to catch up to this fish, but some how Andre's lines is tangled around my feet. I lose tension with this fish and thought it had busted me off when I realize it's just my line is crossed with Andre's. We get our lines untangled and Andre tries to grab the fish but it twists out of his hands like three times. I can't really grab this fish because my feet are tangled in Andre's line. Finally, Andre is able to wrestle the shark ashore and help untangle me from his line. How I landed this shark with all mishaps is a miracle. I didn't want to keep this shark out of the water too long so I didn't get a tape on her, but I would safely say it was a least 60" long. (Female)
60" Female (Mac-bait) incoming tide.
I made sure she didn't wash back ashore this time.
As I'm re-tying my rig I see Ben hooked up with something, from the way his rod was bent it looked like he was stuck on a reef or something, but then I see a splash and I see that he has a fish on. By the time I get over to him, Ben has the soup fin close to shore. I grab the tail and pull it on the sand. I can see it's a thick female. I'll let Ben tell how the fish fought, but it didn't run like a soup fin. Ben has the pictures of his fish, so I'll let him post those pics.
Ben's fish was gut hooked and I didn't have pliers long enough to reach, but thank goodness Andre had a dehooker that was long enough to get to the hook. I leave Ben to revive the fish and put her back in the surf, but he tells me 5 minutes later that he can't get her to swim off. Ben decided to keep this fish and goes to work on cleaning it.
Mike finally shows up and sets up north of me, by this time the tide is dropping pretty fast and the bite shuts down. Mike gets a nice knock down but doesn't connect. We call it a 11pm since the tide was dropping so fast and there was no more action.
One closer to Mike and tied with WMB! (15)
