# Team Shade Hats - 8Ft Hammer Report



## alka144 (May 4, 2010)

Well the family and I did our first true vacation with our newborn Zoe. Only 4 months old, but she handled the drive like a champ to the beach house. We drove through the night during her normal sleeping time and we were able to make pretty good time.








All smiles, the roadtrip is over!

My parents left the following morning and got destroyed by all the traffic : / We spent the rest of that day recovering and catching up on. We had a week to fish and our plan focused most of our shark fishing to nights as that offered us the best opportunity to get some good sharks as well as match up somewhat to little Zoeâ€™s sleep schedule.

The next day we decided to go goof off in the bay boat offshore and ended up finding the best action of the entire week :roll: About a mile offshore we came across schools of sardines getting destroyed by tarpon, smacks, kings, and sharks. We managed to catch a mess of smacks, one 5 ft blacktip, and one huge spinner that Monty jumped right as the hook snapped in half......7ft plus spinner easily.

The first night on the beach we ran a spread of baits on three rods and sat on them for about two hours. Out of nowhere a ridiculous lightning storm popped up and made us ditch half our gear to the beach. We managed to only get two rods in which left me running for the beach house with my 80w in my arms with the line still out in the water. The storm passed an hour later and we managed to recover all of our gear. All the baits were destroyed by pups and crabs.

The next morning we went bayfishing with a local guide. The first thing the guide told us was that July was one of the slowest months out of the year for bay fishing the areaâ€¦â€¦not something we wanted to hear exactly. We spent close to an hour catching bait and then proceeded to the grass flats. We werenâ€™t expecting much action, but within minutes we started getting screaming runs and cutoffs on our live shad. We switched to some light wire leaders and proceeded to destroy massive Spanish mackerels till around lunch time. Iâ€™ve never caught smacks this big before and they were an absolute blast on light tackle trout rods. I will post a video of this action later, but here is a pic of the ice chest after the trip.










That night Monty and I hit the surf again with a spread of baits, but this time using some tougher jack crevelle baits. The entire night we didn't turn a click. The tougher baits survived the pups and crabs a bit better, but we did not get any runs. The entire night there was little pop up storms all around us though so I think that might have turned the bite off.

The next day Monty and I went out in the boat bright and early. The water was too rough offshore so we spent our time in the bay fishing a deep pocket. We didn't catch much, but we did keep seeing something blip on the fish finder 12 feet down on the fish finder. We rigged up two live piggy perch on slip corks and tossed them out. Ten minutes later, one of the rods took off and Monty saw a wave of water come rushing up to the surface from 10ft down the size of a 55 gallon drum.......I grabbed the HXW and set the hook. The rod bowed up hard and the fish ran to the back of the boat then nothing......the hook pulled! We ran some more live piggy perch and managed one more violent strike, but the fish came off before we even got to the rod. 0 for 2, but we believe we were tangoing with BIG tarpon......a fish we have been trying to knock off Montys bucket list for years. Based off the drag it pulled and the wave of water Monty saw we are thinking something in the 100 plus pound range.

It eventually got too hot for us so we headed back and hung out with the entire family on the beach. Zoe even wore her rash guard and shark hat for the occasion. I casted out some fresh smack chunks on my 4/0w and LX, but again no takers.










I managed to run out two casted baits while we hung out but didn't get any takers. We went out to eat dinner with the family and then ran our spread again for the night. We ran three rods out. My hotrodded. Daiwa 6/0, Avet 50w and my Avet 80w. The 6/0w was ran in close, the 80w medium, and the 50w was long bombed. We had all the baits set an hour before sundown and started the wait. Again, this night looked like it was going to be another slow night. It was prime time for shark fishing and nothing was going on. 2-3 hours into sitting with nothing going on I look to my Mom and say "I can't believe we haven't got a run yet" Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz the 6/0 took off screaming hard! I handed the rod off to Lisa and Monty and let them fight this stubborn fish. Close to 20 min later and we pulled in a very very tired and foul hooked 5 ft 8 in blacktip. We quickly tagged the fish and got her released. I re-rigged the rod and ran it back out to roughly to the same depth.


























Right around this time Anna and Zoe started getting tired and went off to bed. Zoe wished the 6/0 good luck and went off to sleep in the beach house.










We waited about an hour or so with three rods out and the 50w took off on a slow roll. I got to the rod and backed off the drag to freespool. The line kept going and then the shark doubled in speed. I let her run for a few more seconds then stuck the hook. Instantly the reel exploded and started pulling me hard. I get harnessed up and start putting serious pressure on the fish. This fish acted very differently than most and kept charging the beach everytime we came to a stalemate over 60 seconds. This involved me sucking up line as fast as I could in high gear then playing tug of war in low gear for 30-60 seconds. This pattern continued until k got her to the bar. There she was forced into playing tug of war or coming over.......she chose the former and nearly yanked me to my knees. This fish was pulling close to 30lbs of drag at this point and giving me all types of hell.

While we were dealing with this fish, the cops decided to show up.....We weren't 100 percent sure if we were going to get ticketed or not for our headlamps and lantern, but oh well we will deal with the ticket once we get this shark released.

I had a suspicion this was a hammerhead that had been fighting so crazy when the cop shined his spotlight into the surf and that big dorsal lit up ity light. Monty ran into the water to grab her while I tried to winch her in in low gear. Monty grabbed the leader and I ran out to help him with the shark. Instantly I knew this was my biggest land based shark and to top it off it was a greater! Our only problem was that we brought in this very ****** off shark in Green Green. We quickly got her tagged, roughly measured, and the hook cut out. We put her back in the water and she kept fighting us bad and running back to shore. She finally calmed down a little bit and let me drag her to deeper water and she was off kicking into the deep! We had her in and out in under 90 seconds and she swam off strong. These hammers are so finicky and easy to kill I didn't risk trying to take photos with her. It really sucks we dint have too good of photos with her, but in the end she swam off unharmed on her own with basically no reviving. She taped 7ft 10in, but we were unable to get her fully straightened out and her tail down so I will call it an even 8ft. Probably could have stretched more, but I I'll take an 8ft PB anyday! Here are the pics and videos of what I have:


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## alka144 (May 4, 2010)

Shortly after we released the hammer, the 6/0 took off screaming again like crazy. Monty took this one and ended up with a fight with one very very stubborn bull. This fish was easy to get to the bar, but took us over 15 minutes to get to where I could leader it. The fish ended up taping out to 6ft 2in with a giant head and shoulders on her.


























A quick tag and release and she was back off to roaming the Gulf. The rest of the night we only had one more run that ended up twisting my entire bite section into one giant haywire twist looking thing. I'm not 100% sure what it was, but it was huge. It managed to pull drag off my 80w and nearly pull Monty off his feat. I'm thinking we tail wrapped something or hooked the mother of all nurse sharks :lol:

The rest of the week consisted of us doing the same routine surf fishing with virtually the same results. Each evening we ran baits and had zero luck. Only thing I could think of was that the rest of the nights had little pop up storms all around us too :? Oh well. We beat the skunk with some decent fish and had a great time. Stay tuned and we should have more GoPro footage coming out to youtube once we finish editing it all. 









Until next time, 
Zach
TeamShadeHats.com


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## bigfost (Oct 11, 2004)

Great report Zach. Congrats on the PB. I love hammers.

Oh, and congrats on Zoe. I didn't know you had a little one now.


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## WillieT (Aug 25, 2010)

That's a great report, and your new one looks like a real trooper. She is a cutie.


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## Illbethere (Mar 11, 2015)

cute Baby, wow your a very experienced shark fisherman, did you catch any Bull Reds? What is the biggest Bull Red you ever caught?


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## Illbethere (Mar 11, 2015)

Also, in your opinion what is the best casting, that you can cast really well,
rod and reel for surf fishing, that will handle a decent size Shark?


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## rubberducky (Mar 19, 2010)

Illbethere said:


> Also, in your opinion what is the best casting, that you can cast really well,
> rod and reel for surf fishing, that will handle a decent size Shark?


For a decent size shark you won't find many casting reels. A 6/0 would be the low end for a shark rod in my opinion and your going to have a hard time casting that. Best way is to kayak or even swim baits out. I use 9/0 and have had a hard time getting some sharks in.
James

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## alka144 (May 4, 2010)

Illbethere said:


> cute Baby, wow your a very experienced shark fisherman, did you catch any Bull Reds? What is the biggest Bull Red you ever caught?


These are the two biggest we have caught. Both were over 48"



















My personal best is only around 42-44" though.










-Zach
TeamShadeHats.com


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## alka144 (May 4, 2010)

Illbethere said:


> Also, in your opinion what is the best casting, that you can cast really well,
> rod and reel for surf fishing, that will handle a decent size Shark?


Our go to casting shark reels are Avet LX, Penn/Daiwa 4/0 wides (magged), and Penn/Daiwa 6/0s (magged). We fish all of those on Okuma Longitude 12ft rods. The LX gets good distance and we have stopped sharks up to 7ft 4in on it. The 4/0w casts pretty well if you practice with it, but not as good as the LX. The 6/0 I mainly use as a casted rod when its too rough to kayak and I want to fish for bigger fish. We just swim/wade out to the end of the first or second bar and lob the bait into the gut.

-Zach
TeamShadeHats.com


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## [email protected] (Jan 14, 2005)

Sweet Catches and sweeter looking little baby.


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## TexasTom (Mar 16, 2011)

*Congrats*

Congratulations on the hammer and Zoe! Enjoyed your report and pics very much.
Tom


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