It's never too old to learn something ,,,,well that's the way it's supposed to work and i for one am willing to learn new techniques to improve my Catch ratio.This week was a perfect opputunity to ponder three lost sharks and the why.The first shark i had a nice hookup after the running man ,fought the shark with heavy drag in my harness for 10 minutes ,had him coming ,he took some drag but not much ,but felt heavy (250-300lbs) and did some violent head shakes and then spit the hooks .This fish left me thinking -how the hell did that just happen?After much thought and considetration to what transpired the only thing i did different was that since i got to the beach after dark with a full moon and hyped up with possibilities of the night because we had a 4 day warming trend ,full moon ,,flat seas and big hammers reported up and down the Florida's east coast the possibiilities had my adrenaline at full speed.In the rush to get my baits out I forgot to resharpen my hooks before deploying my baits.The first lost shark was the one I fought for ten minutes on the 16/0 and the furthest out and north on our campsite the second one on a small fresh bonita charged the beach after the initial hit but when i set up didi not get a solid hookup and the hooks did not catch..
Hammerhead sharks have relatively small mouths so when targetting them it's best to use smallish baits vs big bony ones.A fillet of a bonita would be the almost perfect hammer bait but you can't use that type of bait in the summertime because the crabs and small fish tear it up weithin the first hour of deployment but in the winter it is the secret HAMMER BAIT.
The night after me and Dave (salvashark501)fished Shannon also lost a nice shark that took some drag and spit the hooks a minute after initial hookup.
WHAT DID WE LEARN HERE WINTERTIME FISHING =SMALLER BAITS AND ALWAYS SHARPENED HOOKS
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
tips are always thankfull 
Just like anything else in the winter months, downsize, smaller hooks and smaller baits. A bonita fillet would work great or if you could get a hold of one I bet a small dinner plate sized ray or a wing of a smaller ray would get crushed since all the rays are up and down the bar and just out side of it right now with the cobia migrating and the put out alot of scent and are pretty hard for a tip to get down.
Will out of all the shark, the hammer has best sencors to detect rays under the sand this leads me to beleve they can detect wire and hooks.After watching hammers comming to hit my only to pass it up for a small bait on mono I am a ferm belever that this is true.To put tape on the hooks and mabe a foot up the leader might be the way to go after all. 
