I wanted to officially break in my new surf rig. 10’6" St. Croix Mojo and a Penn Spinfisher V 6500. I had 65 lb brad put on, which I am sure is overkill, but the reel holds enough for what I need it to do.
Combo feels balanced and the rod can really zing 3 ounces + bait. 4 ounce weight significantly lowers the casting distance.
So far, so good. Went to Kiawah on May 19, and hooked up with a nice red just before 4:30 pm. I was as far east as I could go with the tide coming in. Caught the fish before the first sandbar. When the tide comes in, this functions like a river for those of you that don’t know the area. Rig was old funky cut finger mullet, #3 circle hook, 3 ounce pyramid on slide, 40 lb leader. The fish fought me harder than I expected, pulled out a lot of drag. I didn’t get to weigh or measure him. I am embarrassed to say the circle hook caught deep in his mouth and I had to cut the leader. No organs were caught, but I couldn’t get past his jaws to remove it. I was afraid too much force would tear him up. I’d like to think he’ll live.
Yesterday (May 25), I wanted to fish the outgoing tide. Not a lot of action where I had been, but did catch a nice shark to end my day just after 1:00 pm. Same rig as before, but I used fresher (but still frozen) finger mullet from Piggly Wiggly. I also bought a sand spike. I caught the shark directly in front of the Ocean Course club house. That “river” that I mentioned before was feeding out into the breakers. I noticed a lot of bait fish and jumping fish in that areas, so I thought I would move to that intersection. The shore birds were diving really far out, but I cast as best I could and set the rod in the spike. Just then, I see some dolphins really near the shore and I walk over to them. I couldn’t tell if they were strand feeding, but I wanted to get as close as possible to check them out. Besides, dolphin that close means the fishing will be dead for a while, right? So