Hello everyone. Seems like ages since I have been here. This is a fun post so here's my experience:
East beach on this sand bar. Chunking macs in September '99 at a dusk flood. After about a half hour my fish buddy had a good bass of about 25 lbs and we were feeling good about what might be around. All of a sudden I get the "Thud Thud Thud" and happily start sending out some line so the hook is where it needs to be. When i set up it felt like I set into a big old fish net. The rod just bent huge and, though I thought I could feel movement, it just stayed that way bent and tight. I yelled to dave that I am not sure what the feck I've got here and as I said that the line started to steadily run off and the was nothing I could do to stop it. It got faster, then slower and then fast and then stopped and now i was sure I could feel movement. He did this for about 10 minutes and I kept flicking my light on to see what I had left. I would try and get some back and off he would go again taking more. Finally I was down to the last wraps and all i could do was hang there and see if he turned back towards the shore so i might luckily put some back on the spool. He didn't and the rod starting loading up more and that was it. Twang. had to have been a good sized sand shark. I told a local salty I know about it and he told me it was common to find 100lb plus sandy's in the area we were.
It sucked. From then on I always keep a spare. loaded spool. All I had left was my 12lb mono. Needless to say I got %$%$%$%$e that night. dave ended up landing another bass about an hour later.
Bluefins have spooled a few boys in the past the same way as many of you have described.
This year is starting to shape up, finally. Having luck with 15-25lb fish on eels. Hopefully this swell gets out of here tonight. South and East shore are nothing but dead water.
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