Went out today with a couple of guys to look for some redfish

We hit a little area I had gone before, so as usual, I just brought some of my tougher rods reels, but not the big gun

After fishing for about 5 hours, and no fish, we needed some more bait. Now mind you we started with 4 dozen live shrimp, and I didn't use any of them, because usually IMO it's a waste of time, the little fish just tear them apart. I've had better luck with artificials fishing for them so that's what I used. Anyway after getting some squid, and frozen mullets, and 2 dozen more shrimp LOL, they decided to hit Ponce inlet

I was really not prepared for truly hitting some of the bigger water, due to my big gun rod being left at home

. For those of you who know we were fishing the Dunlawton(SP) Bridge. This is the same place I had a fish pull a steel clip on a steel leader straight

So we are tying off(no anchor) to the bridge and started noticing a little activity around one of the bridge concrete pilings(they are huge). I got my mullet out, and was about to tie on a piece of squid when I see a silver colored fish busting some baitfish right at the end of this pilings. I can't make out what it was, but saw enough of it to know it was a monster

I believe it was either a really big Snook, or a Tarpon

, my guess would have been a Tarpon. Well I grab my Johnson Silver Minnow(even though it was gold LOL) and cast it past the piling and retrieve it back past it, no takers. So I tried again, and low and behold the monster hit it, and the fight was on

. I really thought I was gonna land this thing, drag was sceeming several times, but we were just giving and taking. After about 3 minutes(seemed like 10 minutes), it just snapped my 50lb Powerpro. Since it was taking drag, I was more concerned about it spooling me, but it just kept going back and forth, with some serious drag taken off, until I got it turned, and then the same thing. But alas I lost this fish, but it was one he!!uva fight for a few minutes anyways. I actually have a heavy 7'6' surf rod with 100 # powerpro I had just loaded up on it, but didn't bring it because I wasn't expecting this kind of fishing, due to limited space with three of us on a bassboat

Well needles to say everyone on the pier, and every boat around us was watching intently, and I actually heard several aw chits when it broke off. I will land one of these stinking fish one of these days, just not today. I didn't catch a fish all day, but I had a GREAT DAY losing the fish of the day

I kept saying after that, there aint no way I'm gonna get another chance like that today. Anyways it was truly a
SCREEMING REEL MEMORY
Lizards