Fishing

[oldmansurfer]

The shark has an interesting story too. I was fishing on a Saturday night and had been up late Friday night and in addition I had some allergies so I took some antihistamines which combined with some beer made me extremely sleepy. I had a huge bait out and my pole was in a piece of PVC pipe I had pounded into the sand. In addition as a safety precaution I had a clip that fit 4-0 Pen Senator reels which I used to tie the reel down. It was attached to a log I buried in the sand. I told my friend and fishing partner to wake me up if my pole bit and went to sleep. A couple hours later my friend wakes me up and says "Oldman, your pole is gone!" I wake up thinking he is saying my pole is going off so I run down the beach and see my pole is gone. The clip was still there and the PVC pipe but everything else is gone. Later on I learned that the clip was made for a regular 4-0 reel and I had an extended 4-0 which was too wide for the clip. But I looked at the sand and could see drag marks in the sand leading from where my pole was to the ocean. About that time I hear my friends pole start to go, the bell ringing slightly and the drag buzzing as line was taken out. My friend had 9-0 reel with 600 yards of 100 pound test line. (My extended 4-0 had 600 yard of 80 pound test.) It was obviously a huge fish or shark and my friend just tightened the drag on his reel till the line quit going out. By that time almost all of his line was gone. The line had so much tension on it, it made a high pitched sound humming under the pressure. We just stood there and when the humming stopped we reeled some line in till it hummed again. After about an hour we brought up my fishing pole which had caught his leader knot on the drag lever. My pole had all the line drained out but the end knot was holding. I didn't try to reel it in because I knew it was full of sand and wouldn't work but I pulled the pole up the beach and then handlined in the rest which took about 30 minutes. I landed the shark which normally I would have eaten but I had some shark left in my freezer so I removed the hook and released it.

[oldmansurfer]

The first fish is my first ulua (giant trevally). I had been trying to catch bigger fish with heavier gear for about a year and so far had only caught sharks and huge stingrays. A friend of mine gave me a brand new pole and reel and I had practicing dunking huge baits. Normally I used a technique called slide baiting where you throw a leader line with a stopper ring on the end and a lead with wire grabbers to hold the bottom better. Then you have a special slide rig which consists of a slide buckle and a short leader and a huge hook which you placed bait sometimes alive or dead baits. This rig was attached to the line and slid into the water and down the line till it hits the stopper. You would use slide bait rigs in areas with a current to take your bait out or in areas where the water was deep right next to the shoreline (rocky coastlines). However sometimes you want to fish from beaches so you have to cast a huge bait out. I was practicing casting a huge bait with my new pole and reel and had been doing that every evening for the past few nights. This was Saturday and I worked half a day and on my way home I thought I would go check out a beach that I was thinking about fishing at that evening. When I went by one of my fisher friends was there fishing so I went home and got my gear usually a couple big spinning reels in that area but I had my big shore casting pole all rigged and a small eel just perfect sized for the bait in the freezer so I grabbed that too and set it all up.
I cast my eel out but it only went out 5 yards so I reeled it back in and recast it...5 yards again so I recast it and 15 yards this time. Not very far but good enough. I placed the pole in a holder and my friend said "Aren't you going to tie it down?" I said "It isn't going to bite anyway." He said "Why cast it if it isn't going to bite?" I figured he was right so I tied it down. This beach had a sand road that went right by it and you could literally park your car right there and step onto the beach. We called that kind of fishing "Hollywooding it" We had huge coolers full of ice and food and beer or other refreshments and a hibachi to cook with lawn chairs to sit on. It was a luxury compared to many outings.
We were sitting there when the bell on my pole started ringing. I sat there kind of dumbfounded my pole never did that before it was bent over and line was racing out. My friend was standing by my pole with the gaff but I was still sitting in my lawn chair. I jumped up and tightened the drag and brought this 40 pound ulua in in about 5 minutes. It was so beautiful I wanted to kiss it. I spent a long time waiting for this one. The rest came much quicker.