Tide: 1.0ft Low at 5:30pm, 2.5ft High at 12am
We had a good weather window on Tuesday to put some baits out for the toothy variety. We arrived at the beach at 5pm and were in high hopes as several shark and "dolphin" sightings were reported by some northerners walking the beach. We ran 4 rods out as the sun settled over the horizon.
The first bait sat for maybe 30 minutes before getting picked up. How lucky we are to be fishing for sharks in January in shorts!
The fish felt heavy and gave some vicious headshakes. We knew what species we had but were in the dark on length. After 20 minutes we beach a very healthy 7'1" female sandbar.
After the release it was nonstop action for the next 4 hours. Joel was up next with the TLD25 on a 125 yard drop.
About halfway through the fight John's 12/0 went off and a few minutes later my 12/0 went off. I missed the hookset but John stuck his good and we were now doubled up. Ten minutes later we had both sandbars on the sand, 7'3" and 6'10".
We kept running baits out and they kept getting picked up within 5 minutes of the drop. John hooked up again and beached a smaller sandbar. I followed up with a 6'6".
It was getting close to 10pm now and I was starving so I took a 5 minute break to have a drink and eat some dinner. Of course the rods were still going off. Joel hooked up first and was getting worked for a while. Then John hooked up. Then things got out of hand...I hooked up as well. After a little coordination and careful maneuvering we were able to beach all 3 sandbars at the same time and use the timer feature to take a pic. A 4th sandbar actually followed the others all the way to the beach but took off when it got a glimpse of us.
We called it a night after that with a total of 8 sandbars landed in a matter of 5 hours. I don't know how many were out there but the school had to have at least 50, probably more. The weather is going to be tough for the next few days but we'll give it another shot soon and maybe get a trophy fish in the mid to upper 7' range.
