Day before the 4th of July session

[Castmaster]

A buddy of mine Gil from LA drove down to get some surf fishing action and to practice casting poppers in prep for his trip to hunt GTs.  Since I've been landlocked for quite some time, I decided to take my 8' Japanese designed tuna stick rated for PE 3-6 to the surf. Haha!  I paired it with my VS VM275 which haven't hooked not even one surf creature since I've taken it on many surf sessions.  I was hoping it'll hookup this time and break its skunked spell.  We met Scott and his wife at the beach, they're weekend regulars there.  It turned put to be a slow day, though we still got some hookups.  We had baits out by 7AM and it didn't take long and Gil was hooked up to something with shoulders.  His Shimano Tranx and custom United Composite acid rod was working in perfect harmony.  Whatever it was that took his bait, was running hard, and dumping line, straight out towards deeper waters.   He cranked up the drag some more and then pop!  It's gone.  Busted his 50lb topshot. Sucks!  It turned out his drag setting was already a bit high, its just that whatever it was on the other end was a monster, and was still pulling line off the tranx.  A couple of hours went by with no takers, just little nibblers trying to pick some morsels from our baits.  Then Scott hooked up, it was a small bat ray.  Then I got hit, and it turned out to be a calico.  Hours flew by, and the tide started to come in.  I was looking at that VM275l, and keep muttering to myself, c'mon please hookup something.   And then it happened!  All of a sudden my rod got slammed to the ground, destroying that cheap $5 puny rod spike I saw and picked up at sports authority, Lol.  The VM275's drag, at the lowest drag setting with the drag knob very loose and almost falling off is still a bit tight.  Grabbed the rod and finally I was on!  This one's a nice male leo.  I thought at first it was a bat, since it wasn't fighting like a leo.  It turned out it got hooked in the belly. Weird!  I was using a filleted strip of mack for bait.   It probably took the bait and tore it off the hook and then swam over the hook and gut hooked itself.  Anyway, I was stoked that finally the VM275's skunkiness is gone!  To sum it up, it was an awesome time fishing with friends, shooting the breeze, even if it was a slow day!



Vids of the session.

Gil's bust off!
https://youtu.be/Baa7_fIPIhE

Scott's hooked up!
https://youtu.be/uFTDFfWR9C0

My VS VM275 finally hooked up with my offshore tuna stick!
https://youtu.be/gPbACwjPPCY

[Latimeria]

Beautiful boy leppo!  Very cool story and I love how the cheap rod holder didn't cut it.  lol

I see Gil's rod is an Acid Wrapped rod!  Very cool.

Well done guys!