Jeff's brother, Mike, is in town from Texas and he wanted to get on the beach to do a little shark fishing. David and I got on the beach around 6 PM at a usual shark haunt. Jeff and Mike were already there fishing for bait. No fresh bait besides a small spanish to be had, but we went with frozen baits from before. We put out the 12/0, 9/0, and 6/0 Wide around sundown baited with bonita in preparation for a big toothy. Well...didn't get any big toothies, but we had an alright night I guess.
Mike was first with a run on his 6/0. Mike set into this fish and his reel exploded off of his rod. Looks like the reel frame broke off...a little MacGyver by David and his reel was good to go...
Mike sure is a crazy one! He ended up fighting this fish for about 15 minutes and beached this nice 200+ pound Jewfish (ahem' Goliath Grouper)...some pictures were taken and he was quickly released...
We re-baited and paddled the baits back out. Soon later my reel started screaming and a 5 minute tug of war brought in this baby...
This soon became routine and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...
Jeff hooked up on the 6/0
Biggest one of the night
Measured in at 7'3" long
We put the Jewfish around 500#
Monster
While Jeff was fighting that one...Mike got hooked up on a double!!!
Mike's double hookup fish
David's hooked up next
80" long, 66" girth...=435 lbs.
Mike was next
About 300#
This was becoming routine so I just sat with the rod harnessed in after dropping a bait...minutes later...THUMP!
300#+
All fish were caught on either jacks or bonita tenderloins. 20/0 circles hooked most of these fish right in the corner of the mouth and were simple to get out. Total of 7 jewfish were landed and released totalling 2000 pounds to our best estimate (50, 200, 250, 300, 300, 450, 500). All fish were brought up to the surfline for a few pictures and were revived if needed and swam away stronger than coming into the beach. No sharks except for a N*rse shark Jeff caught (minus points). Seems like the Goliaths have moved in to the sharkin' grounds here...good fishing with you Mike, I look forward to finding a shark with ya' this week while you are in town.
What lb test leaders are you using?
