My Struggle Is Real at the Caves (5-28)

[Pinoyfisher]

At his suggestion, Binh and I hit a new locale. Armed with a combo of spanish macks and pacific green backs, we were pretty damn optimistic. We knew it'd be a long with the high tide not rolling in until the wee hours of the morning.

We set up our rods. Both of us had 2 rods to maximize our efforts. I'm a bring proponent to lugging around 2 rods, you never know when you'll need the back up rod. Binh, not so much. I guess an extra 2-3lbs is a bit much for him. A little forboding, no? Even had some of these guys littering the beach.




Binh was first in the water and gets a ripper within minutes of hitting the water. Typical batray run, typical batray fight. His bat takes him north, directly into my line, at least I thought. My line starts to move like someone is tangled in it. I complain to him to control his bat and go to reel in my rod and commence helping him to reel it in. Then I'm noticing our rods are doing different things, his will stop running and mine will keep moving. Hmm... I decide to button down the drag and give it a good hook set... Boom... I'm on! ~5 minutes goes by since our initial casts and we're both hooked up! Mine takes about a 100yds up the beach. One of my better bat fights from the surf. Lower back was screaming at me. Solo landing, 52.5" and Binh's goes in the mid 40's. Binh can add his pic.



I race  back to our HQ to get another bait in the water. I'm starting to get a good feeling about this spot. And it's still low tide. It's no too long that Binh gets another ripper while I'm baiting up. A few seconds into it, I hear a loud snap! Look over to see and hear him yell out in disgust. Apparently, while topping off the mono, he failed to notice he had an under wrap and snapped at that point. A sh!t load of line gone. Barely fishable any more, thank goodness for that back up rig.

Not too long later, he hooks up again! Typical bat fight. Takes him in the same direction as my bat. I watch from the HQ as I had both rods in the drink. I hear vague yelling, so I haul butt to help. This lucky mofo didn't hook a bat, it's an f'ing 7gill! My first glimpse of one up close and personal and I'm in awe! So bad ass looking! I was both apprehensive and stoked to play sandhand. It went much smoother than I had heard. They can swing around pretty quick. I just kept a super tight grip on his tail and quickly back pedaled up the beach. Skills! No measurement taken, but Binh it's definitely a PB.



 


I once again race back to HQ wondering what happened to my rods that were still soaking. As I get closer I can hear faint clicker screaming away! I speed up as much as possible in deep sand and waders and see my rod doubled over. Tightened down the drag and commence the fight... ugh... another bat! Why must you taunt me! A relatively quick compared to other one and I beach her. High 40s.



I convince Binh to stick it out until 1:30am and we head home we no more action. An awesome night at a new spot. Got to see and tail my first 7 and no one was skunked, pretty damn successful. My grinner hunt continues, but I feel like I'm getting closer.

[SevengillTheVC]

SHARKS! SHARKS EVERYWHERE! Nice going guys!

[LONGCAST JOE]

Nice one guys! New AOs always give that bit of extra satisfaction.This might turn out to be an epic year for all if we keep hanging em at this rate...
JOE

[sasquatch]

Too bad you had to put up with all those bats, just to see Binh hang a shark. Next time for sure.

[Eric H]

Your first 7 is literally at your finger tips.

I remember the first time i saw one come up in the skinny, that was a special moment.

[SurffishingSean]

Nice work fellas! Got to sand hand both my fish which made it awesome.

[lamnidae]

What a lovely night.

[1morecast]

Thanks Mike for posting the report, he pretty much shared all the highlights of our trip last night. Below is a picture of the 46" bat ray that hit my rod after a 5 minute soak.



The 7 gill initially fought like a bat ray and fooled me all the way until I saw it's big tail in the surf. Thank goodness for my awesome sand hand I was able to land this bad boy. It was awesome to catch my personal best 7 gill. Hopefully, Mike will get his shot next time. 

[Latimeria]

Congrats Binh!  That's a beauty!