All I can say is that today was a very long and (mostly) uneventful day. Pat and I set out around 2pm on a bait run, but only managed a Blue Runner and a Catfish for fresh bait. Aside from that, we landed one Fluke and a baby Snook. Luckily we had a nice ray in the fridge, so we loaded up the shark gear to hit another river in hopes of some toothy creatures. We yakked baits out trying to avoid the boat traffic, so our drops were much shorter than we would have liked. We continued the majority of the night watching monster Snook swim at our feet, but no luck on the shark front. About 3:40am, Pat decides to call it a night and packs up. I decided to let my bait soak until 4, all while claiming “A lot can happen in 20 minutes”. Well, I strap into the harness to start my retrieve, and immediately line starts screaming off the reel at a fairly quick rate. I sink the hook and got a few runs right away, but something feels wrong. My breakaway rock stayed in tact for half of the fight. Finally, it broke free and I could finally feel the fish. We see the leader and handline what ended up being my biggest Lemon Shark to date towards the beach. There wasn’t a great landing spot, so I had to get into the water with her for the pictures and dehooking. The shark never left the water, and was released as healthy as could be.
Moral of the story: When you think you’ve had enough… Stay longer.