Well it's been a busy month for me. I was out of town from July 12-22 on a family vacation to Indiana. When I came back I had to get back on the water. And that I did. This week I went night shark fishing twice at Bethune Beach. The surf is the calmest I've seen in a long time on the Atlantic side. Swells are 1 ft or less, and the current is not strong. I'm able to hold with a 3 oz pyramid. The first night, it was just me and Zack, and I hooked into a big one. It took me awhile to get it close, and it got stuck on a far sandbar during the fight. Finially got it close enough to see and could definitly tell it was the biggest shark I've caught from the beach. Probably about 4-5 feet long all together, we didn't know how to land this shark without getting hurt or breaking the line. I think we were more concerned about breaking the line and losing the shark. I played with it along the shoreline as we tried to persuade one another to get in the water and grab it's tail LOL. Hey you can't blame us for being nervous about grabbing a shark by it's tail. Plus it wasn't exactly beached either, the water was shallow but deep enough for it to swim if it really wanted to. I finially worked it up close, and Zack grabbed the tail and tried to pull it back fast. The shark tried to whip it's head side to side so Zack let go, and just at that moment a wave came up on the beach. Just enough to pull the shark back in the water LOL. During this event the hook came off and we watched the shark swim away towards deeper water. It was gone. No pictures and no measurements, but a hell of a catch for me. The score is 0-1 on sharks this week so far.
A few nights later I took my friends Zack and Kyle with me to the same spot at night. We had a late start this time, probably got setup with lines in the water near midnight. Zack got the first hit but only lasted about 2 seconds. The baitrunner drag was pulling fast on the initial hit, then snap the 40lb mainline broke. Seemed odd at the time but now that I think about it, I believe it was a big shark that just happened to tail slap the line as it was briefly running off with the hook.
Score 0-2
The next hit was for my friend Kyle on the 10' pole. He fought the fish and it seemed good size from what I saw. I'm not sure what happened but the line broke on this one too. The whole rig gone again.
Score 0-3
A little bit later it's my turn, I get the hit on my 12' pole. I'm reeling in a good fighter and get it up to the shore without much difficultly. I see it's a shark and about 3' long. It's still in the water and I thought Kyle was going to grab it. But the shark freaks out and spits the hook, then shark goes bye bye. haha Oh well, I still had alot of fun and it was a very active night. But the score is now 0-4.
It was after these two nights that I realized I need to upgrade my shark gear, mostly just the mainline on my reels. I'm currently fishing with 40 lb braided line with 100 lb wire leaders. The wire leaders aren't breaking, it's just the 40 lb braided line. So within the next few weeks I'm planning on respooling my bigger reels to 100 lb powerpro braid. I'm also looking at adding a new reel, the one I'm interested in is the Fin Nor Offshore series 8500. With this reel, I could spool it with 500 yds of 100 lb braid. Wow! Plus it has max 60 lb drag pressure, which is almost 3x what my other reels are capable of.
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