Solo Mission and a Wintertime Surprise

I decided to try a new spot today. I got down to the beach to begin the gathering of shark bait, and I was waiting for the snowbirds to clear out so I could run it out. I ran out 2 fresh caught big shark baits on a tld25 and avet lx..saving the heavier gear for about another month or so. I killed time by catching bull whiting, you can get bored pretty quick out there at night by yourself. I was getting mostly ladyfish and bull whiting..good size, and lost about a 30 inch snook that spit the hook out, good to see em around this time of year on the beaches but the water was still pretty cool here. It started to get cooler and windy but as I noticed the moon getting closer to being overhead I had a feeling something would happen. Then finally the clicker on my avet lx went off. It wasn’t a bird, it wasn’t a snowbird, it wasn’t from some idiot casting his fly fishing gear across my lines this time it was the real deal again. I gave the fish time to eat and proceeded to stick the hook in its jaws. He went on a nice first run and peeled off a decent amount of line. I was sure it was a sandbar because of the time of year but I was wrong. I was glad the tide came in pretty good otherwise I would have had a tough time getting him over the 1st sandbar which was nearly exposed earlier in my trip. I got a nice surprise when I saw those 2 big dorsal fins, a winter time lemon and easily over 7 and a half plus it was pretty thick. I stuck the rod in the holder, leadered my fish, snapped some pics and sent him back out. As you can see, I was using a paddle to give the pic some scale and that got washed back out along with the lemon. I rigged up another bait and since I could not paddle it out now I waded out to the sandbar and threw the bait out as far into the gut as I could get it. I gave it a couple more hours and no more runs so I called it a night.