We had a great week with our spiral wrapped surf rods in Seaside, including putting three sharks over 6' on the beach. But this was the largest - a 7'7" nurse shark.

While this nurse did make make the runs our Blacktips and Bulls did, it was still a tough fish. Twenty minutes into the fight, she really hunkered down and did not want to come over the second sandbar. After 5 minutes of stalemate, I locked the drag and started backing up. I figured I had to either get it over the bar or break it off. I have never leaned on a fish as hard as I leaned on this one - I was literally sitting down against the belt / rod. You can see that the rod got the job done.

This experience sold me on the spiral wrap set up for surf rods and I will never build another one with guides on top. Again, many thanks to Bob McKamey, Tom K. and RodMaker Volume 7 #1.

Also thanks to my leader man, Trey Falconer. While he's still a sissy doctor, he proved to be a pretty good tail roper. For purposes of historicall accuracy, please note that all of his fish were smaller than this.