Thought it was a bigger fish?

[Squibby17]

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?