Hello everyone:

Today, we had Dale DeVour, Phil, and Tom aboard for their half day private trip. We left the dock with some precipitation enroute, and spent most of the day fishing in the rain. The winds were fairly stiff in the morning through a couple of the rain showers that came through, but ended up dropping out as the day went on.

The action started off right away, and the guys were into fast and furious croaker action with some real big ones coming over the rail throughout the entire trip. After a couple fish got latched on to by Jaws, Jr., we decided to construct a makeshift shark rig utilizing a couple of bluefish chum leaders. Four times in a row, a small croaker was devoured, only to have the big fish dump line like it was going out of style and pop off!

Finally, right around slack tide, we sunk the hook in a big fish. She dumped off about half the spool of 30lb. braid from the International 965, and after a forty minute, back straining battle on a little bait casting rod...a big brownie in the 6ft. range was up next to the boat. Capt. Skip on the STALKER came over to toss us a tail rope, and we slipped it around the big girl's tail and up on the gunwale. The guys on Skippy's boat took a couple great pictures, we snipped the leader, and set the shark free to make some more fish for the future.

All in all, it was a great day with plenty of action and a dose of big game fishing right off the beach. Don't know if I'd be swimming down there, though!

Pictures to follow...looking forward to next time...