My friend Joel called me and said he wanted to go snook fishing and wanted some company. I didn’t plan on fishing yesterday really so I didn’t bring much along, grabbed my shark rod, cast net, a knife, my new tape measure, a water, and headed out. On the way to the beach I stopped at a canal and I was able to net a cownose ray about 10# or so. I kept the ray alive the whole ride to the beach, in a storage bin filled with water. I even stopped at a marina on the way to the beach to get the ray some new water. I got to the beach and rigged up the ray to my 12/0 in the parking lot, walked down to the shoreline, tossed the live ray in, fired up a cigarette, and then headed down to the spot to meet my friend. I probably looked like such an idiot to the handful beachgoers the whole way. I got to the spot, my friend wasn’t having much luck and I was having some trouble freelining the ray to where I wanted it, so I tied a rock to my hook eye with some 30# braid I stole off Joel’s spinning reel, borrowed a wake board off a kid nearby, and paddled it out about 150 yds. I was liking my chances with that struggling ray on my hook, with a fresh stab wound sending out distress signals and blood, hopefully calling the monster in. I borrowed one of Joel’s spinning rods and fished with that to kill time. It was dead, we didn’t get much as far as snook and it was mostly catfish biting. I even broke my own rule at the beach and got on my phone. As Joel packed his stuff up and said he was heading home, my 12/0 got a nice slow steady run. Joel was more excited than I was, I figured it was a 6 and a half ft bull with a big appetite. I hit em with the running man hoping to get spun around by a monster but no..then halfway through the fish managed to pull off line with locked down drag..these lil bulls down here fight pretty nice. I was off by 1 inch it was a 6’7” bull. I had to cut the hook because it was jammed so deep into the shark’s jawbone it wouldn’t budge, but took off nice and mad and in great shape on release. Here is our bull shark, we didn’t have a camera with us so I would like to thank Frank from Colorado, a nice guy on the beach who emailed me this picture.
My friend Joel called me and said he wanted to go snook fishing and wanted some company. I didn’t plan on fishing yesterday really so I didn’t bring much along, grabbed my shark rod, cast net, a knife, my new tape measure, a water, and headed out. On the way to the beach I stopped at a canal and I was able to net a cownose ray about 10# or so. I kept the ray alive the whole ride to the beach, in a storage bin filled with water. I even stopped at a marina on the way to the beach to get the ray some new water. I got to the beach and rigged up the ray to my 12/0 in the parking lot, walked down to the shoreline, tossed the live ray in, fired up a cigarette, and then headed down to the spot to meet my friend. I probably looked like such an idiot to the handful beachgoers the whole way. I got to the spot, my friend wasn’t having much luck and I was having some trouble freelining the ray to where I wanted it, so I tied a rock to my hook eye with some 30# braid I stole off Joel’s spinning reel, borrowed a wake board off a kid nearby, and paddled it out about 150 yds. I was liking my chances with that struggling ray on my hook, with a fresh stab wound sending out distress signals and blood, hopefully calling the monster in. I borrowed one of Joel’s spinning rods and fished with that to kill time. It was dead, we didn’t get much as far as snook and it was mostly catfish biting. I even broke my own rule at the beach and got on my phone. As Joel packed his stuff up and said he was heading home, my 12/0 got a nice slow steady run. Joel was more excited than I was, I figured it was a 6 and a half ft bull with a big appetite. I hit em with the running man hoping to get spun around by a monster but no..then halfway through the fish managed to pull off line with locked down drag..these lil bulls down here fight pretty nice. I was off by 1 inch it was a 6’7” bull. I had to cut the hook because it was jammed so deep into the shark’s jawbone it wouldn’t budge, but took off nice and mad and in great shape on release. Here is our bull shark, we didn’t have a camera with us so I would like to thank Frank from Colorado, a nice guy on the beach who emailed me this picture.
Very nice man, very nice. Love the simplicity in this one, borrowed wake board, buddies braid, a rock..... That is a nice looking bull John, congrats.
Chris
Last time we relied on a random guy to email us a picture of a very big lemon it never came through lol, luck was on your side for sure.
Just an average fisherman.
Way to make it happen John.
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