Quick back story, my best friend Jesse's brother(daniel) passed away from pancreatic cancer last Friday. Needless to say, Jesse was in need of some ocean therapy. Due to his mental haze and our lack of sound planning we ended up skipping our 5am launch and decided to hit the evening bite. We hit the beach at noon. After chatting with the guys coming in from the morning session, there didn't seem to be much hope; bait was hard to get and everyone was skunked. Not to worry, we were going to have a blast regardless. We passed the buoys and started making bait, between the two of us wrangled 3 Spanish and a useless lizard fish. With dogs everywhere and hammerheads causing a ruckus, there didn't seem to be much hope. I was trolling around my last Spanish and it got slammed, then spit. I pulled it in and by my surprise, the majority of the fish was still there, a bit damaged but still alive. I put him back to work, and within seconds I was on again. after a lengthy fight I see a hammerhead b-line it toward my boat.... oh shit! no worries, Jesse got between me and the shark and tossed a tasty iron right in his path. The hammerhead hit! While i was pulling in my fish, Jesse is fighting a hammerhead, it was doing circles around his boat, it was like Jesse was riding a bull as the shark was helicoptering at mach-jesus around his yak. Hard to explain how hilarious this situation was. Jesse broke off with the shark as I got color, YT number 1! Yea baby! I forgot my gaff like a dumb-ass so I hand gilled him into the boat (scary). We started trolling west along the kelp and made our way around a cattle boat the seemed to have some action. Jesse was YO-YOing irons and got slammed, not too long later he had his YT in his lap. Both fish were about 24-25 lbs. All in all, could not have asked for a better day. We slept in, relaxed, soaked in the beautiful weather, and each nailed a beauty.
Here's to you Daniel Williams, Rest In Peace brother