*Overdue Hammer Report*

This is long overdue.

Well guys, it has been a long while since I posted on here, quite simply because we no longer live in West Palm and instead travel around the country opening up new restaurants with Chick-fil-A. It absolutely killed us to leave South Florida, but y'all know how it is when you are chasing dreams. Anyhow, over the course of 2.5 years in West Palm, I pretty much accomplished all of my sharking goals.....except for one. We left West Palm in September 2015 and I had never landed a HAMMER. As some of you on here know, I got my tail kicked by what I think was a monster hammer one night during Spring 2015, but we will never know. We hooked up at 3:00 AM on the dot and were spooled by 5:05 AM - heartbroken. I figured that was my last chance at a big hammer, and so it was for exactly one year. Here's where the story begins....

Fast forward to March 2016. Erika and I have been on the road with Chick-fil-A for about 7 months. My supervisor emailed me and let me know that we would have 4 days off of work before our annual conference in Atlanta on April 11th. 4 days off in April? HA! There was only one place where we were going to spend that week. Springtime in South Florida is simply amazing, where every bait ran out has monster written all over it. We had to borrow most of our sharking gear - special thanks to the guys who helped me out, you know who you are. I met up with my long-time buddy Mike and we absolutely crushed the jacks at the inlet. I was up on the spotting rock and an 8-9 foot hammer swam right by the jetty....I took this as a foreboding sign of things to come. With plenty of bait for the next two nights, I hit the beach hard with one target in mind... We had to drive back to Atlanta on Saturday, so I only had two nights to fish.

Night one: Nothing. Prime bait. Deep drops. All nighter. No runs. Baffling. Back to our friends place for a quick 2 hour nap and back to the inlet to continue wearing out the jacks.

Night two: I hit the beach with my buddy Jesse for an all night, last ditch effort for a hammer. I really only use one type of bait when I can help it - jacks. I strongly believe that using a bait that you are confident in will help you fish longer and more diligently. For me, that bait is a jack crevalle in the 20-40 lb range, generally cut in halves or thirds depending on the size. I really like the midsection pieces of the massive 30+ lb jacks, they always seem to get nailed for some reason. The heads of big jacks are hard to beat as well. Bait rant over. As usual, I ran my jack midsection way out deep, probably around 400 yards or so. I'm a huge fan of deep drops with big jacks - probably nothing to it, just a confidence thing. With two rods set with jacks, a deeeeeep and a short, we dozed off to sleep to a gentle breeze and light surf break. At 1:00 AM sharp, I was rudely awakened to a short burst of a run, which made me think blacktip or something running into the line. I went ahead and harnessed up, just in case. Glad I did! As soon as I got strapped in, my reel started screaming. I let the shark eat briefly, tightened up the drag, and went to work. Within minutes, I knew what was on the other end. The shark went on long, blazing runs and came charging back towards the beach. This same routine happened 3 or 4 times, and I finally managed to get the beast in the 1st trough. Jesse ran to the surf break with the tail rope and yelled "LEMON!"...... There was no way that shark was a lemon. He was kidding - I saw the sickle fin cutting through the shallow water and knew that I was within feet of accomplishing my ultimate goal of landing a big HAMMER. I secured my rod and ran down to the shoreline. With the help of some friends fishing down the beach, we photographed and released my first hammer, which turned out to be about 10-10.5 feet, give or take. Man this fish was greeeeen when it hit the beach and tore me up all over. The shark swam off strong.

This beast was a long time coming.
4 days to fish. Prime bait. My return to the shores of South Florida was something out of a dream.
1 run. 1 shark. 1 hammer.

Special thanks here:
1. The Lord for creating everything that we get to enjoy.
2. My awesome wife who encourages me to fish/hunt whenever I have the chance.
3. Mike, JD, Jesse, Chris, and Devin for always being down to fish and help me piece together the gear I need in a pinch.

Y'all enjoy the pictures.