So I made it down to Charleston this weekend and all I wanted to do was go fishing. Of course, the weather was awful, but I went out Saturday after the thunder claps had pretty much stopped.
I was able to net a bunch of finger mullet at our dock, so I was armed with those. Went to a super secret spot near Sullivan’s island first and was bottom fishing. Nothing too exciting, a few little sharks and a toad fish or two, but those barely get the tips of the rods bending. Was able to get a decent sized bluefish up which I promptly cut into a few pieces and then broke out my “heavy duty” (for inshore standards anyway) penn defiance rod, threw some 6/0 hooks on a double drop rig and put the chunks of bluefish on there. The reel is a baitcaster reel and it’s spooled with 30 or 40# mono and the leader is one of those pre-made double drop rigs…60#.
Anyway, after a few minutes on the bottom something hits the defiance rod hard…really hard. I grab the rod out of the holder and line is just flying off. I start tightening the drag down but it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure if I maxed out the drag, but I had to have been close. Line was unspooling as if I had the reel on free spool. After what was probably less than 7 or 8 seconds I feel the pressure come off the rod and as feared…the fish had broken off. Oddly enough, it was the barrel swivel that broke (the one that connected the dropper line to the main leader).
The fish also broke the surface, but I was so busy bumbling with the drag that I didn’t see it and the other two people said that they were hypnotized by the screaming reel that they only saw the breach out of the corner of their eyes and only saw the splash. (thus have no idea what kind of fish it was)
Obviously I’m curious as heck as to what it was, any thoughts?
My guess was that it was a tarpon. I suppose it could’ve been a big shark, but it didn’t seem like a shark…it ran much faster than any shark I’ve caught before (or any other fish for that matter) and it jumped.
I’ve had the same thing happen to me behind sullivans island. Fish took off dumping the spool until he broke off.
Was it a store bought double dropper rig? I have lost so many nice fish on those because the hardware fails.
Yes, it was store bought…might have to think about higher quality tackle.
I would’ve liked to have seen the fish, but given the power that it had and how fast it was stripping line off the reel (and the fact that tightening the drag didn’t even seem to phase it) I think that it would’ve either spooled me or broken the main line.
Oh, I hope the Jacks are coming back around. One time several years ago I was fishing for sheephead at the jetties. I felt a bite and jerked back to set the hook. I felt a good solid hook set and said “yeh that’s a nice one”. A split second later that fish took off away from the rocks screaming out the drag.
My buddy pulled the anchor and we chased it for a while. We got him within 10 ft or so and we could see it was a big jack crevelle. We fought the fish and almost had him. We drifted out into the opening of dynamite hole and that jack got real strong again in the deeper water. The line couldn’t take the strain and he broke off. Super exciting though!!!
Had a similar thing happen to us last weekend. We were fishing cajun thunders with MM on the bank and had a couple big rods with whole mullet carolina rigged on the bottom. Not much action until the bottom rig rod doubled over…i thought it was going to break. It was peeling off drag faster than ive ever seen. We couldn’t stop it or turn it even with full drag…so we pulled anchor and chased it. It finally stopped in a deep 30’ hole and sat there…then it decided it wanted to run again and hauled a$$ for another 100 yards or so. He actually came up to the surface when he was running once. We finally muscled it into shallow water near the shore and saw the biggest stingray ive ever seen caught inshore. Was much longer, tail to nose, than the 7’ rod and was almost as wide as my arms outstretched. Catching stingrays is a pain usually but seeing one this big was pretty cool. We finally cut the line, 50lbs power pro, and he moved along very slowly.
if it broke the surface and the rig broke then or shortly after i would guess spinner or blacktip. they dump line on medium tackle and can put on quite a show. they also destroy inferior tackle.
I can’t say for certain, but the rig breaking had to have been within a second of the surface breach because as soon as I lost tension on the rod I looked up and saw the splash fingerprint
I’m with PeaPod…no positive ID, big strong run, near some type of inlet and or sandbar…definitely a Poon. My guess though is that it may have turned into a ray had you gotten it boatside. All kidding aside…tie your own leaders, nothing sucks more than losing the day maker bite due to &@&$ty pre-made leaders.hope you get another chance at whatever it was.
What it was, was the biggun that got away and keeps you going back If nobody can prove otherwise, it can be anything you want it to be. I’d call it a tarpon too. Could have been anything. Shark, tarpon, ray, big bull red, big black drum…
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose
thanks for all the ■■■■■■■■ guys
I’ve only been “seriously” fishing salt water for a little over a year now, but this is definitely my “one that got away” story. As much as catching a big one keeps you coming back, missing a big one does the same…especially in salt water where the mystery isn’t just “how big was it” but also, “what the heck was that”
If nobody can prove otherwise, it can be anything you want it to be. I’d call it a tarpon too. Could have been anything. Shark, tarpon, ray, big bull red, big black drum…