Soloin the East Coast - Lil Hammer

This weekend I decided to go solo over to the east coast to do some sharkin'. Friday night I fished a spot with nothing happening all night. Then on Saturday I decided to head south. So all day saturday I drove south stopping at every bridge, jetty or anywhere I thought I could catch bait. I enjoyed exploring new areas of Florida I've never been to and finding new bait spots. I ended up getting a few rays and decided to head to my spot for the evening/night. Around 9:30pm I got a nice hit on a ray but it dropped it. I put out a new ray and at 4:30am it got slammed. I set the hook and then while running it hit the reef and cut off about 75yds of topshot. I put on another rig with a bait which gets hit hard 10 minutes after deploying the bait and again a good hook set but it swam at a 45 degree angle to the reef and broke me again on the 130lb mono topshot. Based on the hits and size of the bait I'd say they were both decent sized bull or hammers. I'm worried now that I may have missed my opportunity to catch a shark this weekend but I put out another rig and put a big mullet on it. I think it was about 5:45am when the bait got hit and all I could do was pray that this fish wouldn't go sideways to the reef. I guess God came through cus' that was the first shark I've ever hooked that swam straight out from shore and not sideways down the beach. A little while later I see the unmistakable dorsal fin of a hammer, I grab the fish and drag it on the beach. Fortunately everything was ready to document and release this fish so I got it back in the water real quick for being by myself. The lil hammer ended up being 7' 5", nothing big at all, but still it made the weekend worthwhile. I put out my last bait and let it sit until 7:30am with no hits.

Setting up to a flat calm beach

Sunday Mornin