Hellooo short work week! Anyone else getting excited about the 4th festivities coming up? I know I am… ‘Merica, right?

Over the weekend, we headed to Georgetown to do a little fishing, some paddle boarding, and just take it easy in general. It has cooled down some since our crazy heat wave a couple of weeks go, and the weather was glorious – just enough cloud cover and perfect for getting out on the water and wetting a line or two.

Honestly, the fishing was pretty slow on Saturday. I ended up laid back in a beach chair before too long while my dad and John gave it their best efforts. I know I know… Rough life.

Sunday, we decided to try North Inlet for the fish, catching a handful of small sharks from one of the sandbars. And that’s about it. But1! At the suggestion of Parker (John’s daddio), sheepshead would become our next target. Dad and Parker went to the spot first and had success, catching 10 or so in an hour. Before calling it quits, I wanted to give it one last shot before heading in, so I popped a fiddler crab on my hook, and tossed my line into the water. [Ok, fine. John did that part. I just couldn’t make myself stick my hand into a bait bucket full of fiddler crabs, even though their one good claw isn’t even big… No idea why, but I just couldn’t get past it haha].
It didn’t take long for me to get a bite. A nice sheepshead had taken my bait, and I started to reel him towards the boat. Just as he neared the surface, he took off again, this time out towards the middle of the creek. I let him do his thing for a few seconds so I wouldn’t pull the hook, but then his speed suddenly tripled. At least tripled. Just when it hit me that I might have a bigger problem on my hands, and I announced that “I don’t think my fish is doing this. I think something else has my fish,” a 5 ft spinner shark came twisting out of the water about 30 yards from us. With my sheepshead in his mouth. He must have breached 4 or 5 times, spinning constantly. He wasn’t actually hooked, but no matter what I did, he wouldn’t let go of that fish. That shark was running so fast that I worried I might run out of line, so everyone frantically reeled their lines in and we took off across the creek after him. I climbed to the bow of the boat, and we ran the shark down like we were after a tarpon or something. That sounds dramatic, I know, but that’s what it felt like! After a few minutes of fighting, I got the leader close enough to the boat to spook the shark, and he finally let go of my sheepshead. Well… What was left of it, anyway.

I mean, come on… Couldn’t the shark have let go a liiiiitle sooner? I honestly have no idea how the sheepshead didn’t just rip in half to begin with, rather than have a big chunk of it’s middle stolen.

Hey, at least it was a fun fight and I came away with a good story, if not a fish!