Tiger Shark Landed w/ TLD25

Tarpon J · 2010-09-25T03:00:12Z

I got down to the beach in the morning and was able to catch good bait right away. I was able to get some big trout, a few big mackerel and a couple of 12-15 lb jacks. There was a rainstorm in the middle of my trip, and I waited it out under a condo parking garage where I watched my rods from. I heard the clicker go off about halfway through the 10-15 minute storm and when I set the hook I was popped off immediately..I usually don't have problem with underwater obstruction at this particular place. After a few more bait checks throughout the day it was finally happy hour. I jumped a freakishly large tarpon on the mackerel I had out there, he flew out and spit the hook before I got to the rod, a couple seconds and he was gone but it was so big I was actually freaked out by it. Not long after that something picked up my snook rig and my tld 25 rig went off at the very same time. I set the hook on my spinning rod and called my brother over and gave him that rod to fight that fish. I went to the tld 25 rig and it was a nice steady confident run. I set the hook and wasn't sure what it was at first. He went on a nice first run but after that not too much. I even started to think it was a blacktip. Then I felt the weight, he was hard to move and not doing too much so I thought it was a big nurse shark. That was until he went on a few runs and was taking out line at will with full drag. Usually with nurses I see they don't fight so hard until you work em in closer then they will peel off some line on you. I fought him hard and kept the heat on him good. I had plenty of spool to work with so I could just let him wear himself down and relax. He fought relentlessly the last 100 yards in the shallower water. He would always keep shooting back out to the deeper water, diagonally. Took probably about 45-55 minutes but I fought this fish hard. It was tough to finally wear him down, tough to keep him from takin line when he wanted, and when he wasn't taking line he was not so easy to move with a 30-60 lb class rod but I got it done. Now I can scratch another species off my list. We didn't get any action the rest of the day. And during the first 15 minutes or so I was fighting the tiger, my brother was taken down the beach and into the inlet by a 4 ft wide stingray that ate my snook rig 15-20 ft from shore. They only got a look at it though it ended up breaking him off on the light spin gear.