Most fish in the surf aren’t lost on the hookset. They’re lost in the handful of seconds right after, when there’s loose line piled at your feet, a fish already moving, and your hands trying to manage three things at once. The take feels like the hard part because it’s the part you can see. The part you can’t see, the transition from a fistful of slack to a tight connection running off the reel, is where a striper spits the hook or an albie throws a loop and breaks you off before it has fully committed to its first run.

This is where the two fish that define the fall run split apart. A striped bass and a false albacore of the same weight fight nothing alike, and the mistake most of us make is fighting them the same way.