Boatless Fishing Forum, Reports, Info

I was fishing at night off the beach using 3/4 of a big whiting fresh. My set up was 9ft surf rod with a shimano bait runner (spinning) 50lb test braid and steel leader with a big J hook. I used no weight. Casted about 50 yards. Bait was in the water about 10 minutes on my third cast. Had bait runner on and the line started screaming. I stood up pick up the Pole and switched bait runner off and then felt the weight off the fish and the line broke off. It took 50 yards of line in 5 seconds. My guess it was a 200+ pound Bull or Tiger. I would just like some advice on setups for sharking. Is conventional reels a must. And what pound test. And mono or braid. Thank you for reading this. Any tips or feed back would be greatly appreciated.

Did you have the braid tired straight to the steel leader? If so how and how long was the wire leader?

With a swivel, yes. The wire was short maybe 8 inches

Could have been a cuda. That's not what most people would use for a shark rig. I suggest you look in the shark fishing section of the forum, there's tons of information on how to make a shark rig etc. A couple inches of wire right to the braid isn't gonna work out.

My friend and I had a similar encounter fishing the keys last december. I had 40lb mono tied straight to 12" of wire. I thought that would be enough to handle a shark... what a mistake!!! The shark's body/tail cut through the 40lb mono like nothing... I had him on for a second at most.

Your line that touches the entire length of the shark must be "shark proof". Not just the part that's in his mouth.

The issue I'm having is how to cast 5 or 6 ft. of wire or cable leader. You can't really... and so I'm looking at "wind on" mono leaders. I can't figure out what a suitable thickness would be to guard against the sand-paper-like body of the shark or to protect against "tail slaps". 100 lb? 150lb?

with that kind of a blistering run are you sure it wasnt a mako