I was able to get out early enough to meet Steve at the bar for some drinks and food before heading down to the surf. I stopped by beforehand to gauge the conditions and found the beach packed, with plenty of string and thong bikinis!
This hour shift is a real pain in the ass, but we decided to head down a little early and fish a less packed part of the beach before sliding down to the shark spot.
The thongs were gone as the sun dropped, but bikinis turned into yoga pants by this point.
Steve gets a SCREAMER! He finally gets to his rod and after a few cranks, it drops the bait! That got the blood pressure up! It's been a while since we heard a screaming clicker like that.
He rebaits and tosses it back out to the same zone...
Total repeat with ANOTHER SCREAMER! Same exact thing happens as the last lost fish... and I haven't even got a sniff yet! Well, I did reel in a few missing baits, but never had my line start peeling out.
A little later and I see Steve stand up and walk down to his rod. He starts reeling in a ton of slack line and it seems apparent that he's finally on. Just then I hear the Scream of MY reel this time! That's a sound I haven't heard in all of 2022!
I was trying to hope it into a Leopard Shark, but knew it was a bat ray. Realized we were a week out from the SNBF and they were finally out to play.
Not bad as they were in the low to mid 40" mark which would have crushed a win for SNBF-XV! LOL
I realized that Squatch was on also as we fought a double header from the surf. Spittin images!
Things started to cool down, or I should say, people left and I was itching to move down to the shark spot. Steve and I leap frogged a few surf spots down for nothing. Plenty of red tide out there making the waves blue, but nothing in the way of bites. If we didn't head down early to fish, it would have been another night of a skunking!
Cop pulled someone over and those bright lights were really annoying. I think they must be using High Beam Cherries/Blueberries these days.
They finally left after what seemed like a 20 minute traffic stop, but that didn't change our luck. We stuck around until 9:30 and called it quits.
It was a successful night even though we didn't get any sharks. It just felt great to hear a screaming clicker again and actually fight something that could pull back!
Thanks for reading!