Emerald Isle trip

Tomorrow is the end of my Emerald Isle trip. Fishing was slow at first but have nailed them the past few days. We started the week off in the surf. As y'all probably know it has been really rough at the beginning of the week. Monday we caught a nice croaker and a whiting. Our little 3 ounce weights rolled around a lot so we switched to 4s on Tuesday. Tuesday we had no luck so we decided it's time to hit the point. Wednesday morning we went to the point and did some good. I started out catching pinfish but quickly got bored, so I put on a gulp shrimp. First cast on the gulp shrimp I had a nice flounder!!! I think he would've been pushing 15 inches but since I didn't have my tape I let him on back. Later that day I took my cast net down and loaded up on nice finger mullet. Thursday we decided it's time for the pier and that was a good idea! As soon as we got to the fish cleaning station on the end I saw people throwing gotchas and catching blues every cast. I quickly got a gotcha out and caught a nice blue. About a half hour of nothing and then there came a huge school of menhaden within casting distance of the pier. Quickly I caught one more blue and here's where the fun comes in! I casted right over the bait ball and quickly I hooked a screamer! Never had I saw the braid on my new stradic 3000 peel off that fast... Within about 15 seconds my 100 yards of 20 braid was gone and I was down to my mono which was only a couple wraps around the spool. I locked down hoping to turn him but it pulled the hook! Bummer. After casting back out I hooked a nice Spanish and landed him. Turned out to be a 20 inch Spanish and he was on the grill last night. This morning we hurried out to the pier and had even better action. My very first cast with the gotcha landed me a nice pound blue. I kept on casting out and quickly hooked up to a Spanish right beside the pier. I had him up about a foot out of the water and it fell off. Probably not the legal limit though. I persistently kept casting witch landed me with one more blue and 6 that came off trying to get them on the pier. If anyone heads to the pier use a white body gotcha with a chartreuse head. I had many locals beside me casting since I was booking fish but none with my color and they didn't have a single strike. Overall it's been a fun trip and i sure wish we had more time to stay. I'm also going to learn how to pin rig with my avet mxl and maybe pick up a 6/0 or lx for kings. I'll ad pictures in a little bit