Veterans Day Hammer...Nov,2011

JD Tiger no more. This year JD has earned his stripes, quite a few of them, with 3 tigers and no hammers we were gonna change his name, but for his name sake he caught a hammer.

Right after school on Thursday we set out to the keys, arrived before the front, with the moon almost full. Put down kingfish, blackfin, everything we could get our hands on, sharks were stripping baits off our hooks pretty good. We shined our spotlight on a tipper. After a while the tipper seemed to go away, we shined the light on a 7ft lemon, then moments after a 10ft hammer picked up my blackfin carcas, but spit it out promptly. The tide switched, we took a rest and hit the same tide we started on. This time we each had one bait left, me with an already used blackfin head, and JD with a brand new carcass, he went to drop his in the water and it fell off the hooks... . My bait got picked up solid, steady, and slow... I did the running man, stopped dead in my tracks and the shark spit my hooks.

These are some pics from JD's last trip-

2-3lber

snook

gag

From this Thursday-

Still in fierce sun photography competition lol

The fate of our bait.

From Friday...
The hammer and an 8ft lemon were sticking around the area, the hammer ate a stingray off of my friend Adam's line. The fish were everywhere but the bite wasn't as incredible. Adam ended up landing a big ray and we all split pieces. JD saved the pieces for later. We took a brief stop in the morning for breakfast and jigging at random bridges, JD got a nice mackeral, then later a grouper. I jigged up a snapper and got a decent grouper on bait.

Adam and Dan packed up and left, but these fishermen were quickly replaced by varoon and his friend (sorry, not to sure on the name).

As soon as tide slacked up, JD grabbed a slab of ray so big that it couldn't be lowered into the water by hand. A splash and a slick, it didn't take 5 minutes before the rod made a click... I walked over and looked down at the bait and saw this big hammer go down and inhale the bait. Hooks were set the fight was on. The shark was straight up and down in 45 minutes, the 10ft hammer was whooped... or at least we thought it was... after some quick pics it ran under the bridge and we just held it until it popped, we were satisfied with the pics and didn't take the extra measure to catch and walk it down most likely killing it.

Friday...

black grouper

It's on

Son of a...

Motha...

C'mon

Power winching

click.. VIDEO

Whoa...

comin' in

closer

That's one hefty shark