I haven't posted in a while but I've caught some decent fish, this one was out of the ordinary so I will post it..I wanted to go to the beach today to try and get my leader back from the hammer that cut me off..but the wind and waves had other ideas. I decided to stay close to home and hit up my tarpon and big snook spot. I am on my 4th tarpon this year, 1 landed, 1 jumped, 1 was hooked on my snook rig, a 12 lb class spinning reel and I was trashed..all these fish were in the 80-120 lb range. I learned today that sawfish don't fight as hard as tarpon, but this was still a challenge on my 12 lb spin gear. I had a couple spinning rods out fishing for tarpon bait as well as snook..I was using cut needlefish. I also had 2 tarpon rods out some 2/0 and 3/0 reels which didn't turn a click all day. I caught quite a few catfish which I was using for tarpon bait, I would have preferred mullet it seems like that is what they have been preferring at this spot. One of my spinning rods takes off and when I set the hook I could tell it was no catfish..I could feel way more weight than what this gear was meant to handle. Eventually I stopped the fish and fought it to the seawall..my other spin rod went off and I was worried it was another sawfish. I layed off the drag on my spinning reel with the sawfish on and layed it on the ground then ran over to my other rod, caught and released the catfish on it, grabbed my camera and tried to get evidence of my catch. Luckily a guy was walking his dogs and helped me get some pics and I took some video myself while I fought the fish before the guy showed up. After I got some evidence I popped off the sawfish. Later on in the day I hooked a 18-20 lb class snook, swam under the dock I had to put my rod around the piling and out the other side to stay hooked up, it swam around another piling I pass the rod to my dad who met up with me later on he grabs it and brings the rod out from under the dock and now he's fighting a big snook, it then charges the dock fast and cut us off...here is my sawfish, I really guess that now at this point a big hammer really is the last species I will be able to scratch off the list I hope it is soon....
Here are some video
Thats pretty awesome dude!
Colby Uva : Bullbuster Team Captain
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/107013063084498996341/
SFSC-Tagging/Fishing Science Coordinator
Awesome for sure, rare and highly protected .Congratulations John.
SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB -President SFSC-Founding Member est 1983 SFSC-Website Administrator BIG HAMMER SHARK TOURNAMENT -Founder Rene Memorial Sharkathon -Founder NMFS Shark Tagger
Very badass dude and some sweet battle pics. I think I saw a picture in Masterbait and Tackle of a dude with a monster sawfish on the beach down by Ft. Myers somewhere.
Very nice and rare catch
SWEET
sonny
nice catch man i caught a 3 and half ft one last summer out at the cape coral yatch club then the next weekend had a friend catch 2 of them in the same night. what did he take as bait
nice catch man i caught a 3 and half ft one last summer out at the cape coral yatch club then the next weekend had a friend catch 2 of them in the same night. what did he take as bait
Hey man nice to see you back..anyways, the sawfish ate a cut piece of needlefish, I was trying to fish for catfish to use as bait for tarpon but ended up hooking this instead. A couple days after I caught this I saw a smaller sawfish swimming along the seawall at this same place.
Man that is awesome - those things look like prehistoric dinosaurs or something - INCREDIBLE !!!!!!!!!!!!! I would love to catch one of those - they had them featured the other night on HOOKED on National Geographic and i watched the episode. glad hes also off and swimming for another day - they get to epic proportions and the only way they will is if we let them go - thank you for that !!
Here are some video
Nice work once again John! That is a crazy looking and extraordinary catch. Congrats and best of luck on your monster hunt.
Chris
sweeeet catch man
DIRTY SOUTH SHARK HUNTERS
2012 1st place BLACKTIP CHALLENGE
2011 NO LIMIT TOURNAMENT CHAMPION 2nd year in a row
2010 BHC biggest hammerhead shark on 80 lb test
2010 NO LIMIT TOURNAMENT CHAMPION
2010 BHC 3rd and 5th place biggest shark
2010 april sharker of the month
2009-2010 Rookie of the year
A couple more river monsters have been caught by John recently 
That's awesome, another species I need for my endless list of never-been-caughts 
Just an average fisherman.
Awesome fish! I hope to catch a sawfish one of those one day!
"He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction" (Proverbs 13:3).
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