Saturday morning at 4 am I left the house hoping to return with photos of a VERY large shark. Unfortunately we ran into trouble when it came to catching bait. The big bait fish that should have been there were not wanting to be cut open impaled on a hook and dangled in front of sharks. I really do not understand why? I did manage some nice trout but they are dinner and not bait.
We ended up on a nice sand bar where we could answer the call of nature and attempt to catch some bait. I pulled out my flyrod and with a small fly started catching some big pinfish. (Think aggressive crappie)
After catching around 10 of them we went back out to a deep dropoff and put out some baits with others added to the water in a chumbag.
Not too long later I had a nice hit and run so I reeled in my bait to see if it was still there. Most of it was aside from a large round bite taken out of it. Figuring the shark would still be there I threw my bait back in the general area I had it before. Afew tugs had me ready. The float holding the chumbag jump big time. Then my line started pulling out, then started going faster. Thinking I had given it time enough to eat I closed the bail on my reel and went tight.
This shark went BALLISTIC!!!! 4 big jumps and splashes later it had wrapped me around the chumbag. I pulled anchor and let the shark pull me to the chumbag float. Getting there I was able to untangle my line from the floats line and the fight began again. Feeling the shark was too close to me I loosened the drag on the reel and let it run a safer distance from me before tightening it. At this point it came flying out of the water for some more big jumps.
I wish I had a picture of the shark out of the water but that is a hard shot to capture. My buddy Mark (Cooknfish) did good to get what he did.
The fight continued with me easily getting the better of the shark. My tackle was set up to battle fish around 200 lbs. This shark was more in the 40 lb range. It still put a good bend in the rod and made for a fun fight.
I was able to get the small shark close to me (small = less then 4') and saw it was wrapped up in my 80lb leader. I started trying to untangle the shark (without getting my hands anywhere near the shark) but there were a few wraps of the leader going through its mouth. Between me holding pressure on the shark and its chewing it did manage to bite through my leader and swim away before a picture. Regardless of losing the photo op I must say the exciting fight had me excited and my hands shaking!!!
What fun! Now some people have mentioned my sanity of fighting a shark with my feet in the water. All I can say is it was hot that day and having the feet in the water also heightens the feel of danger. Fun stuff!
Other fun points of the day included having some BIG dark shadow pass between me and my kayak. It may have been a manatee although it never surfaced or it may have been a BIG bull shark which could have easily killed me. Yeah I hope it was a manatee.
Also I think the heat may have gotten to my friend. He started wearing the chumbag?
We ended up on a nice sand bar where we could answer the call of nature and attempt to catch some bait. I pulled out my flyrod and with a small fly started catching some big pinfish. (Think aggressive crappie)
After catching around 10 of them we went back out to a deep dropoff and put out some baits with others added to the water in a chumbag.
Not too long later I had a nice hit and run so I reeled in my bait to see if it was still there. Most of it was aside from a large round bite taken out of it. Figuring the shark would still be there I threw my bait back in the general area I had it before. Afew tugs had me ready. The float holding the chumbag jump big time. Then my line started pulling out, then started going faster. Thinking I had given it time enough to eat I closed the bail on my reel and went tight.
This shark went BALLISTIC!!!! 4 big jumps and splashes later it had wrapped me around the chumbag. I pulled anchor and let the shark pull me to the chumbag float. Getting there I was able to untangle my line from the floats line and the fight began again. Feeling the shark was too close to me I loosened the drag on the reel and let it run a safer distance from me before tightening it. At this point it came flying out of the water for some more big jumps.
I wish I had a picture of the shark out of the water but that is a hard shot to capture. My buddy Mark (Cooknfish) did good to get what he did.
The fight continued with me easily getting the better of the shark. My tackle was set up to battle fish around 200 lbs. This shark was more in the 40 lb range. It still put a good bend in the rod and made for a fun fight.
I was able to get the small shark close to me (small = less then 4') and saw it was wrapped up in my 80lb leader. I started trying to untangle the shark (without getting my hands anywhere near the shark) but there were a few wraps of the leader going through its mouth. Between me holding pressure on the shark and its chewing it did manage to bite through my leader and swim away before a picture. Regardless of losing the photo op I must say the exciting fight had me excited and my hands shaking!!!
What fun! Now some people have mentioned my sanity of fighting a shark with my feet in the water. All I can say is it was hot that day and having the feet in the water also heightens the feel of danger. Fun stuff!
Other fun points of the day included having some BIG dark shadow pass between me and my kayak. It may have been a manatee although it never surfaced or it may have been a BIG bull shark which could have easily killed me. Yeah I hope it was a manatee.
Also I think the heat may have gotten to my friend. He started wearing the chumbag?
