7 Mile Bull - 3/20/2010

Saturday Night me and my wife go to 7 mile bridge south side for some shark fishing, in the cooler I have 2 fresh amber jack carcasses on the menu for sharks. I get to 7 mile about 5:00 pm unloaded the car and realize that the current is going out, which is not great news to me because I need incoming, so on the way up to my spot I see mud rays swimming around the flats so ,I grab my jig-master and tie my weighted treble hook to it and start trying to snag one of the rays, Luckily I snag one ray about 12lbs on the first cast I gaff it and keep heading to my spot, the current kept going out until about 9:45pm so I threw out the amberjack on the 14/0 and the mud ray on the 16/0, I had an issue trying to sink the mud ray so I left it skipping on top of the water, about 45mins out I get a really fast hit like a hammer or black tip, I let it run and set the hook and he took about 10 secs of drag and spit the hooks with the bait, But I noticed after he hit it the bait sunk, Not even 5 mins after the first hit I get a solid hit, medium speed without stopping I look at my wife and tell her its a bull, I set the hook and he took drag. He gave a nice fight he started running up the bridge heading north but my 16/0's brakes had other plans for his direction and his desire to go were ever he wanted so I stopped him. I got a few pics of him from on top of the bridge, The pictures are not the greatest because you cannot relate his size to any object in the water I couldn't walk him down because I was alone with my wife , If I had to guess how big he was I would say definitely over 8 ft but cant give you any inches to go with it because I would be lying. He was very big, fat and long, I also caught some mangroves with live pin fish but didn't take pictures.