I always feel hopeful and a little worried when tying a brand new LC on and tossing it into a favorite rocky hole. The LC, the conditions, the bait schools – all looked nice today, low tide on my lunch break and rock structure was close but still 3-4 ft deep in a nice trough. Sure enough after few casts I hook a very nice fish (either legal hali or ?) and 10 seconds later it breaks off ..with MY NEW LC. I would have waded to any structure and depth to save it (as many times before) but this one is gone.

I tie another one and continue crisscrossing the hole with casts and they were active : I landed 4 halis, but all short. At one point an 18-20” model jumped right at me landing a couple feet away from my knees.
A couple ladies strolled down the beach as I was landing one shorty. They stopped, asked questions while I unhooked my LC and then I asked: “would you like to release this one?” I think it’s the most fun part to of the whole experience. One seemed excited, palming it like sandwich with two hands and placing in shallow water. So maybe it was not a bad day after all.

But wait, 10 min later as I was about to go, the same lady comes to me (back from beach stroll) with MY LOST LC in her hand “Is this yours?”. I presumed hali shook it out and it floated to the beach, 2 hooks badly bent. "YEAH- THANK you!" I did not take pictures but had to post this. Oh, and on my last cast I hooked up with what I though was another hali but turned out to be a DD BSP- healthy and fat cruising around rocks.

Have fun out there and don’t get frustrated, things can work out.