Outrunnin a Front and Landin Some Sharks

Up in Tampa Bay yesterday it wasn't nothin but rain, wind, and rough seas. I showed my buddy zack a beach cam of the beach we usually fish and a spot I know a couple hundred miles away where it was flat calm and blue skies. I told him I didn't think the front would make it there and the sharks should be biting. He agreed that we shouldn't fish local like we have been doing and should skip town. Zack has been fishing with me since August when I met him at USF and has been a great partner. He will paddle out baits, pitch in for gas, and run in the water and grab a shark. He just hadn't had the opportunity to catch one so this weekend I was gonna make sure he got one.
Well, we got down to our destination and spent a couple hours snaggin rays. We ended up with four 15-20lb southerns and a dinnerplate ray. I also lost a dinnertable ray (100lb+) after a fight for 15 mins. We hit the beach an hour before sunset, put a whole ray out on the 12/0 and 14/0, and half a dinnerplate on both the finnor 9500 and 309 levelwind which I put out every now and then for the heck of it (its got loops at the bottom). At 8pm the finnor took off and I handed the rod to zack and he fought it like a champ. A perfect fight for that reel and ended up with his first shark from the beach, a 6'7" female sandbar. During the fight the 309 went off and I was fightning that shark but the j-hook pulled. At 8:45pm the 12/0 took off and I landed a fat 6'3" female bull. At 11:30pm the 14/0 went off and I told Zack he needed to catch another shark and he landed a very fat 7'1" female sandbar that had an incredible 4' girth. The circle hooks worked perfectly and I am very pleased with their performance compared to J's; I haven't had a single hook pull yet with circles or a gut hooked fish that dies on you. *Please note to any viewers that I did not leave the non-stainless circle hook in the 2nd sandbar's mouth as you can see in the photo to hurt it, it broke the dehooker and I felt that it would be best to cut the cable rather than putting any stress on the fish. I do not give permission to anybody to reproduce these images or use them to talk about how us shark fisherman are harming sharks. Majority of us shark fisherman are in it for the sport of it and want our grandkids to be able to recatch the shark or its babies later on down the road.*

Now that I said the catching report, here comes the fishing part of it. After we released the 3rd shark while repaddling out the 14 I spooked a shark 5 feet below the kayak and I bout had a heart attack when the water lit the heck up with an electrical storm of bioiluminescence as it took off. I kept on going though wanting to drop the final whole ray we had at my lucky distance. Before I paddled it out I told Zack that this bait was going to get nailed tonight, I guarantee it. At 3:15am the 14 took off with a freight train on the other end. I'd been praying that jawz's female cousin come around and hit and well here she was on the end of my line with a perfect 45' doubled up cable and two double strength mustad J's in a 20lb ray screaming towards the deep. Of course, for the second time this year and I don't know how many times in the past 5 years, I lost the big one. This time it was when I went to set the hook and she spit it. I literally could feel her open her mouth and the bait just fly out as I tried to set the hook. My guess is it was a tiger. But hey, you lose more than you catch when it comes to trophy's and Ill get her one day. Thats what keeps the drive in me to keep going out every week for the past 5 years. After the shark spit it I let it sit and an hour later it took off but it ripped the bait off the hooks.

Zack's first shark; a 6'7" sandbar

My 6'3" bull

7'1" sandbar

Sandbar release. That thing had one long fat belly.

Sandbar swimmin away

The bite radius of the 2nd sandbar in a 15lb ray