Jaws

Every morning Id set out before dawn to try and catch sharks. I'd asked around and done a bit of reading online and the story was that off the beach here in july the game was either flounder or sharks. Well a twenty inch flounder was considered a big one and the idea of catching them just didn't excite me so I opted for sharks. I learned right away the hard way that although my tackle made the small sharks fun it was woefully inadequate for the monsters that swam in the mouth of johnston creek at the beach's end. I caught a small one and was in the middle of unhooking it when the clicker on the other rod took off screaming. I set the hook hard and nothing happened line just kept screaming off the reel. Finally the fish turned but only when the spool was showing thru the little of my remaining line. I got the feeling the fish just turned of it's own accord rather than anything I did. The whole time I had it on I had the rod bent right to the point that I felt any more tension and either the rod or the 20 lb line was going to break. After a couple minutes the fish just simply began swimming away. Down to just a few feet of line left I applied even more pressure trying desperately to turn the fish and Snap! the line broke. It was a very very big fish, big enough to make me vow to never swim in low light or out too deep around here. I did manage to catch quite a few small sharks in the one foot to three foot range and briefly have another big one on. Next year I'll be back with some real tackle to put one my size up on the beach...