Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire That’s a hell of a fish to hook into from shore

I knew a guy who served on an island base out in the pacific, every night when they would throw the food scraps off the pier, big bluefin would show up like that.

That was a lot of fish for that rod/reel combo and no way to chase it. I would have cussed when I lost it.

Well no biggy losing it, I didn’t see that he’d brought a landing net anyway.

Osky

That reel sure got a workout!

Needed an Avid 80 quad drag, with a couple of thousand yards of line.

'
Very schitty bank to fight fish from.
Also time to learn how to cast a conventional (levelwind) reel to have more drag power available when Mr. Big jumps on.

Needed a boat, too.

He had zero chance of landing that size of BF. He did about all he could.

That would get the old heart pumping.

Dang, that drag was screaming.

It sure looked fun while it lasted!

Absolutely. Sometimes it just is what it is.

Osky

Very hard to fight a fish like that from shore with less. I've fought big sharks from shore that left me with stripped reels and big chunks of skin from my thumb melted into what line was still left on the reel. Lol.

Isn't there an old trick about hooking the snap swivel of another rod onto the reel and letting the first rod and reel go overboard? I've never done it or seen it but I seem to recall reading it somewhere. Of course the guy ended up breaking the line and loosing the original rod and reel too.

My brother picked up a new Avid 130 over the winter, the line to spool it cost more than most reels.

Reminds me of when I hooked into what I believe to be a big bull shark back in the day. I was fishing with Dad and when the fish got close to pulling all my line out we would chase it down with the boat which enabled me to reel in line. Then when I put pressure on it, it would just run all the line out again. Felt like I had hooked a submarine.

Eventually the leader broke. If it was a big shark I was lucky to have it on that long as usually their teeth will cut a mono leader which is what I had because we were not shark fishing.

Hung into a 8-10ft shark in Corolla yr before last steel leader didn’t mean schit 🤣😂 hell of a fight will be back👍

Took me 2.5 hours to land a 7 foot dusky shark on Pensacola Beach. I was fishing for redfish. Took a lot of praying.

As a kid I watched a guy set the hook from a Kitty Hawk pier one evening and all of his line disappeared in a single run. Gathered up his gear and left.

I've had one fish spool me while steelheading on Oregon's Deschutes. I was running from midriver to shore with hopes of keeping up and saw the last three turns on the spool disappear before I got the 22LR pop as the leader parted. I only had a couple hundred yards of backing though. Never saw the fish. It may have been a salmon, or an Idaho Clearwater steelhead possibly hooked in the tail. Much more memorable experience than the hundreds I've landed, and the memories flood back every time I pass through that stretch.