Thought it was a bigger fish?
 

Went out on the south shore last night. Starts fairly slow, a couple schoolies. My friend arrives with eels, and in five minutes hes hooked into a good fish. After a decent fight I help him land it, its a 38" inch fish.

I'm no sharpie, but thats a nice fish for me and was his biggest striper ever. About 10 minutes later I'm on, The fish runs hard for about 15 seconds. I hold him/her there for a couple minutes gaining line very slowly. The next five minutes It's pretty much a stand still, I didn't want to tighten my drag too much and I was fighting a very strong current. I was using a smaller rod, 7 feet but a pretty decent back bone Its my subway rod so I can get around the city. After 15 minutes I'm starting to think I may be on my first 30 lb fish. I have caught a number of 36-40 inch fish, many at this spot. This fish felt bigger and was real stubborn about coming in.

Finally I land it. Probably took just under 20 minutes. The fish 37 inches, but I could have sworn it was 40"+. I'm still very happy with that for a bass but, has it been too long since I caught a decent fish? Was this fish stronger than usual for some reason.? Has this happend to you?

fish
 

that's a nice fish :bl: some fish fight better than others

could be a male

They fight differently when hooked in different areas of mouth. Also depends where in the water column they take your bait. The mid size fish fight the hardest also. Just my observations.

There was alot of water around this weekend. It could affect the current. Especially if you were fishing some kind of channel or river? If so, where? I might have to go solve this mystery personnaly. Just kidding, I think fish tend to fight harder in the Spring and the Fall. They got a long trip and really start to put the food bag on. They eat aggessively and fight aggressively. Just my opinion.

It could have been a "Racer" and they fight harder.
plus what everyone else said is also true