My very 1st Sandbar Shark! Bradenton, Fl. 2011

Hey Peeps what's going on! I caught my very 1st Female Sandbar Shark!!!!
She was 7Ft & close to 200Lbs & her condition was EXCELENT!! My method of fishing was on bridge.
The bait I used was a whole Lasyfish useing my Harnel rod & 9/0 Reel with my Bullbuster 80 Lb Test,8Ft Leader & 1 hook!
She was caught at 2:30 A.M. in Bradenton & took me 1 Hr. to bring her in and slowly walk her to land.
The weather concition was Moderate Chop with the Temp of 80 with the Wind Speed 10 to 15 out of the N.E..
On 11/12/11 J.D. Fuqua (HAMMER) picked me up at my place at 10:00 A.M. We went to go pick up J.D. Fagan at his place.
From there we drove all the way to Naples to see if one of my friends was around to make a vusit but she was not around so we keeped on driving and made it to Bradenton. We got hungry and desided to go have lunch at The Wing House in Bradenton. We had Wings,Buffalo Shrimp, 2 pichers of beer & the waitress said that they had Jello Shots so yep we had them also LOL! It was funny watching HAMMER trying to eat them! FAGAN did not drink that much as he said that he would drive the rest of the way.
We left The Wing House and stoped at a Circle K to buy some ice, 18 pack, & some munchies then headed to our destination for the day in Bradenton. While we were there we were watching this couple and there son fishing while sipping on a cold one. The woman was bringing in these tiny fish by a small net from off the seawall one after another non stop and she was giggling the whole time!! LOL We took a look into her 5gallan bucket and it was
full of them tiny fish! FAGAN was off doing his own thing and HAMMER asked the woman what she was going to do with all them tiny fish.
The woman said that she is going to make a soup out of them and deepfry them. We were like ha because they were so small and was wondering how she was going to take the skin off of them! HAMMER asked her how she was going to take the skin off of them. She showed us how she did it she cut off a top fin and started to peal the skin! It was like she was pealing a bananna thats how easy it was!!! FAGAN noticed what she was doing and was in shock also and said that they are awesome eating. He said that they get bigger he has seen them and ate them. Later on as it was getting dark we started to unload the truck and headed to the bridge.
HAMMER & FAGAN were setting up our rods they both had Rays on theres and I had a whole Ladyfish on mine. We droped our lines in the water and just chilled and talked. We even watched the bridge open up for several boats to go through. I noticed that my battery was going dead so I went to the truck to charge it and to listen to some music. All of a sudden I hear HAMMER yell out my name! KIMBERLYN!! That is my nickname that he has been calling me since we have known eachother LOL.
KIMBERLYN YOUR ROD!!!!!!!!!!! I told him that I herd him! He was in shock that I herd him from the parking lot but I did! I quickly left the truck and started to run up to the bridge! It was very steep and I was huffing & puffing!! I grabed my rod and did my thing and she took me everywhere! She was a tough shark as I have never caught a Sandbar before! At 1st HAMMER & FAGAN thought it was a Huge Bull wich I have never caught before!!!!! Finally I brought her up to surface so HAMMER could take some pic's of her in the water!
Then I slowly walked her to a nearby island connected to the bridge so HAMMER could take better pic's of her out of the water! HAMMER & FAGAN left me there holding onto my rod after takeing pic's of me holding onto it! HAMMER used the rope from his gaft and wraped & tied it onto the bridge. FAGON climed down the roap but thought it was not that far down so he desided to let go of it and drop down! Are you kidding me we were 2 stories up all HAMMER & I herd was a loud THUMP and OUCH! UGG!!!!
Thank God he did not get hurt! While FAGAN was down there he measured her and HAMMER was takeing pic's of her with FAGAN next to her! FAGAN took the hook out of her and released her into the water and she swam away. FAGON started to climb up the roap but couldent so he climed up a pilon and got up top and I helped him onto the bridge. HAMMER was getting sleepy and did not was to sleep on the bridge because the cars were to close to us so we packed up our stuff and headed down to Venus Pier and tried to sleep in the truck.I had the front seat, FAGAN had the back seat, & Hammer had the back of the truck. We did not get to sleep right away as we had company! LOL
We had a pesky young Raccoon makeing alot of noise and was eating McDonalds french fries that fell out of the truck earlier! HAMMER was like oh hell no I'm not going to sleep untill it's gone! I am sleeping next to a freaking cooler full of bloody bait! FAGAN slowly gets out of the truck and trys to scare it away but did not work! HAMMER said be careful don't get to close to it, it will tear you up! I rolled down my window and started to throw ice at it LOL!! All it did was go after it and eat it all we herd was fast crunches! LOL Toooo Cute!!!
We gave up and just let it finish eating then finally it left and we got some sleep. In the morning HAMMER woke FAGAN & I up after checking out the pier & said lets go there is nothing good here lets go get something to eat. So we went to McDonalds then we went back to Bradenton to catch us some Rays for bait. As we were doing that HAMMER caught 2 nice sized Spanish Mackerals wich I took home and had them for dinner the next day. Then we snagged 2 Rays I got one and HAMMER got one. HAMMER let me bring both of them to shore and he did what he had to do to them & put them into the cooler.
As we were leaving to go home this bird landed on the seawall so I slowly walked over to it pretending I had food and took a pic of it pretty cool pic!!On the way home we stoped in Naples to have lunch at Hooters! While we were there I tried to get ahold of my friend but she could not make it over to us as she had company over but oh well there will be another day! It was a awesome trip and can't wait to do it again!!!!