Heartbreak thresher Dana Point

[YakDout]

Decided to try dana point this morning for the first time. I have never even been to the harbor. Launched at 7am with a friend. Loaded up on sardines and both our bait tanks were giving us problems, had to dump the bait. We headed out of the harbor and made our way over to the point. We started off fishing for bass in the kelp. I got a nice sand bass about 18" and didn't want to filet him so I let him go. After a couple hours we moved outside into 50-60 feet of water. I saw a ton of bait fish In the water and quickly grabbed a large greenback, very large. I had my avet ready to go with 65 lb braid, 50 lb topshot, 2 oz of weight straight to the big 4/0 hook. My buddy chad and I both started to give up after slowly trolling the macs back towards the harbor. We started to drift and I had some inclination we should soak the baits for about 10 more minutes. Around minute 7 my drag started to scream and I had a good feeling what it was. A shark. And a big one. After a solid 30 seconds of him pulling line he started to tow me in circles. I still was not 100% sure what it was until I saw the massive tail. Now, I have a hobie revolution which is 13.5 feet long and this fish was easily 3/4 the length of my boat. Chad grabs the gaff from my boat because it was the bigger of the two. I lay him as close to the surface as I can without the tail coming out to far, and we miss the first gaff shot. I brought him up the second time all the way to the surface , and suddenly my line goes slack. The hook popped off. I'm now watching this thresher shark very slowly swim away and it was the biggest disappointment I've had while fishing in a very long time. Well, like my friend chad told me on the paddle in, don't count your chickens before they hatch.