June 28th:
Flounder fished all day in the Roosevelt Canal here in Delaware, caught over 40 flounder all just shy of keepers, go figure. But hey its fun bailin em! Decide later in the day to go hit the beach, of course I had anticipated this and brought all of my recently acquired sharking gear, and so we decided to drive on out and set up. Tide was ripping of course, so my first drop of the baits off the Penn 50's are sideways down the beach, reel in, walk 75 yds down the beach, head out on an angle, and ended up having them perfectly set about 200+yds off the beach. Using whole fresh slimy bunker for bait.
After the two baits get set and drags checked/spider weights set nice and dug in the sand..we decide to paddle out the other penn 6/0, had plenty of kayak paddler's, so why not.
Playing some corn hole (baggo/bean bag toss game) watching the rods like a hawk, and bam the 6/0 goes down three times before I can get to it, I tighten the drag down, slam it up to strike, and set the hook, as I am setting the hook I look up only to catch the Sand Tiger airborne! thats right! little bit of air and a big splash 150-200yds off the beach, it was an awesome bite.
Set the hook a few more times, hand the rod off to my dad and get him strapped in and the fight was on. After about 15-20 minutes I had the leader, and man was this Sand Tiger strong, bulldoggin in the surf making multiple 20yd runs, finally time my leader wraps and pull with the incoming set, and we get a nice tail wrap and drag the shark up a few feet, still receiving water through the gills with every wave that would crash on the beach. Got the measuring tape, got the cable cutters, and he was back in the water in approximately less than 2 minutes. Tape measure read 6 ft 11, but I was struggling to keep the shark straight, and it in the heat of the moment/chaos, I really couldnt get a super accurate reading, I'd say I was off atleast 4-5 inches or so, putting this male ST @ 7 ft 4 inches possibly. Dad couldnt stop smiling from ear to ear, which made this trip a thousand times more special that I was able to put him on a big shark
Pulled all the other lines in, reset new fresh baits, fished for another hour, and my crew was tired from being up at 4 am fishing all day (and boozing the night before) so we decided to pack it up and head in..heres some good shots!
-note in above picture, shark was no further out of water then in all the previous photos, it happened to be after a big set rolled in and the wash and sucked back really far into the beach.
