June 21 2004 MONSTER Spanish!
Today i ran some customers out to a ledge about 8 miles from Carolina beach looking for Spanish and kings. There were huge bait pods everywhere that were being blitzed by small kings. I got all the lines in the water and the right long line went off. The reel was screaming and we could see a small king skyrocketing with our pink skirt hanging from its lip. I handed the rod off and it was a short fight, he came up beside the boat and he was well over the 24 inch limit so i drove the gaff home. As soon as i put him on the deck we had a huge surprise. Thats not a small king ITS A HUGE SPANISH. It was the biggest any of us had ever seen. My lip weigher said it was in the 8lb range. We picked up a few smaller Spanish and ran to AR 382. We trolled for about fifteen minutes and the down rigger went off.. This was big. Very big. We chased it around for a little over a half mile. We didnt think the 20lb king tackle would hold up, but sure enough a little over 45 minutes later my customer raised a shark as big as us. After a few quick pics, we freed the beast. At the end of the day we finally got the monster Spanish to cape fear marine and tackle to put him on the scales. The Spanish was 29″ long with a 32″ girth and weighed 7.6 lbs. Another awesome day. Good luck.
Capt. Matt Wirt