Attended sunrise services this morning at my favorite spot ... got there early enough to watch the moon (nearly full) setting over the Guana River. Then walked over to the beach to watch the sun come up over the ocean.
The water was semi clear ... current moving North but 4 & 5 oz sputnixs were holding. Not much in the way of wind.
Not much in the way of fish ... a few bait size whiting and a few black tip pups and an occasional cat. Couldn't find any fleas ... where are the fleas?
Hooked in to what I determined to be a big sting ray ... made a few really long runs and eventually settled down on the bottom and wouldn't be budged. Applied as much pressure as I could and eventually the hook straightend out. After replacing the hook and rebaiting I noticed that my line had gone comepletely slack ... I started reeling in and something had broken or bitten my line off ... I figured a blue fish or something came across the line and just chomped down ... lost shock leader and the whole rig .... BUT LUCKILY, I had a film canister in my tackle box and inside the film canister was a wine cork with a spare shock leader and speed clip wrapped around it ... boy what a good idea that was ... :-) already re-packed another spare shock leader.
While searching for fleas I was able to scoop up a 3-4 " calico crab in my rake. I disarmed the crab (removed the claws) and stuck the whole thing on an 8/0 long shank hook on a 4 ft 100# mono leader. I flang the whole rig out as far as I could fling using my 13ft team alabama rod... by and by TA was doubled over and line was peeling off the reel (Diawa exceler 4500T) . This time I didn't mess with the drag and just let the thing have as much as it wanted. After each run I reeled in until it started another run, made 4 or 5 long runs and moved up and down the beach clearing the water of a few other fisherpeople. Eventually it was in close enough where I could see that it was a shark in the 4 ft range. Got withing about 20 feet of the sand and took off on another run to deeper water, this time I was able to retrieve what I lost quickly and got it up to the beach. I told the lady standing there watching that I had the shark real tired and asked her if she would go out and get it for me ... she declined ... got it up on the beach for measurements and photo ops, but not until after breaking the tip off TA when I was reaching for the leader while holding the rod up right ... too much pressure on the rod tip ... snapped off 14 inches ... ouch ...
Bonnet head measured 45 inches from tip of tail to nose and weighed 15 lb 10 oz. It took about 10 minutes to revive the BH. He swam away ... took about an hour and a quart of lemonade to revive me. I crawled away ...
Haven't figured out how to attach photos so I e-mailed photo to Suellen ... maybe she will post ?