I’m often asked when is the best time to fish is. The simple answer is while the tide is moving. Morning, afternoon, evening, it doesn’t really matter. On an afternoon tide in August we setup on a beach a little ways from the structure I wanted to fish but with about 2 dozen people swimming in that area we went off to a far corner to setup. The bite wasn’t fast and furious at the time so we got a few lines out with live mackerel and took a seat to enjoy the absolutely perfect weather we had.

All of a sudden the starboard stern rod started screaming I jumped and locked up the bait runner, and the line just kept on going 100mph. I called for the young lady to come take the rod. While I’m trying to hand her the rod and make sure it doesn’t go for a swim the second rod off the stern has it’s line start going 100mph. I tell the boyfriend to grab that rod and reel. He jumps into action and gets it locked up and “fish on.” The first line is still making a good pull of drag on the 6500 class reel it has finally started to slow a bit. Now both of them are doing a great job keeping pressure on their lines and keeping a good bend in the rod, but the lines are heading right at each other. I’m asking them to try to see if they can get their fish to turn direction by leaning the rods away from one another but they are on a crash course for sure. I let them know we are probably going to lose one, possibly both if the braided lines chaff. As I pray to the fishing gods to spare her fish from breaking off the lines converge to a single point and to my surprise neither line breaks. I’m expecting we are going to have to start passing the rods one over the other but I can’t make out which one is above or below. The lines are just moving in unison. After a few more seconds of observing the lines in lockstep and no erratic rod movements, I tell the couple “I think you have the same fish.” They both ask “what do you mean the same fish?” I reply “I think you both are hooked into the same fish.” Sure enough, as the fish gets close enough to see both lines are coming from it’s mouth. They guide it into the net and clear as day line 1 caught just before the esophagus and line 2 was locked onto the lower jaw.

While I have seen a fish take two baits before it was usually with chunk baits sitting on the bottom with a fish moving slowly picking one after another up and then taking off. This was the first time I have seen a fish take a live bait get hooked and continue on to eat a second that was at least 20-30yards away.