Wife bought me one of them fancy fishing carts for my birthday. Been tied up shooting birds, so this weekend was our first trip back to the beach. Decided to leave the boat at home and try my hand at surf fishing. The in-laws and wife went to some festival Saturday morning, so I used my time to sit on the dock at the house and patiently wait on a menhaden school to roll by. One throw and I had all I would be able to keep alive in a yeti bucket (the only decent use I have found for these things). Unfortunately, there's no sign of shrimp in our canal, so I was stuck with the frozen skrimps from the bait shop across the street. Load up my stuff in the cart about the same time they get back and off we go to the beach.
Getting everything set up, my FIL, who is no outdoorsman, wants a lesson in what I am doing. I show him how to tie a chicken rig for fishing the shrimp, and a knocker rig for the live menhaden. I didn't have high hopes of catching much, but I don't "sit" on the beach well. I keep my niece occupied going back and forth in the surf dumping saltwater in the yeti bucket to keep the menhaden alive. Also, did I mention that I don't have the right setup for surf fishing? Currently using two penn 2500 spinning reels with #30 braid paired with #25 fluoro topshot (no cable, don't want to pull a shark on the beach) both on 8' Fenwick HMG medium rods...not exactly an ideal surf setup.
5 minutes into the whole ordeal, I land a decent sized blue on the shrimp. Discussion with the FIL about the fish and back in the water he goes. Re-bait and back out. As I'm setting the rod back in the rod holder on the cart, I feel another bite. This one just feels like the fish is holding the bait...yep, I think i know what that is. I finish my beer (+- 30 secs) and set the hook. In comes about a nice fat 20" flounder. Unfortunately, the wonderful leaders of NC feel that the recs are the ones putting a hurt on their flounder populations, so back in the water he goes, much to the dismay of the faithful crew on the beach. Re-bait and back out the shrimps go. Still no sniff on my live bait.
At this point, the group sitting 50 yards down from me with about $800 worth of surf fishing gear comes walking down to see how and what I am fishing with, as I have almost no time invested in this and they've been there since daylight and haven't done any good. We are all having a good laugh at my setup when the shrimp pole starts dancing. In comes a medium sized pompano. Those fish actually put up a good fight on the smaller rods I have, I love catching those. I didn't feel like fooling with just one fish, and I knew the wife wasn't going for fish in the beer cooler, so I passed him off to our neighbors. Re-bait and back to fishing we go.
After 15 minutes of no love, I begin to contemplate the extreme need to use the restroom against the cool temperature of the water. I decide that I should wade out further in the water with the live bait pole, cast into deeper water, and relieve myself, which gives me a positive reason to wade into the cool water. As I am reeling in the shrimp pole to begin this endeavor, the menhaden pole starts screaming. I have never heard anything inshore start peeling line off of a reel that fast. I've witnessed it offshore many times over the years, but never anything like this inshore. I pick up the rod and slam down on the drag as much as the line will allow. The fish makes an enormous first run and has most of my line out before I turn him. I gain back about half of the line, then he makes THE RUN. You all know THE RUN. It's the run that when it starts, you know you're outmatched. Your tackle isn't designed to keep up with it. You know there's nothing you're going to be able to do. The run that everyone watching you doesn't know what's going on. The run that you'll be contemplating what you had on the end of the line. The run that when you had to put your hand on the bail to keep from losing all your line, it burns your fingers and breaks at the reel (complete re-spool required), not at the leader. Yep, THAT run. I turn around, and my FIL is standing there, asking what was that...well, it could've been anything from a shark (unlikely to me as I don't fish wire/cable, and with a small circle hook I think he would've cut the line), a BIG red, cobia, tarpon, etc. Who knows. After that run though, I lost my desire for surf fishing with small tackle.
Lessons have been learned. Gear will be upgraded. THE RUN will happen again, and when it does, hopefully I'll be better prepared. Been a little scarce in here with reports besides ECU burning up the trout and reds. Not my typical type of fishing but figured we could use some entertainment in here. Tight lines fellas.
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