Hooking Canal Giants

Today I went fishing in a saltwater canal across the street from my house. I was fishing with my brother, and because we didn't have time to get any other bait, I took some hot dogs out of the freezer. Once we arrived, we could see schools of 20+ pound Jack Crevalle swimming up and down the canal. We threw some pieces of hot dog out there and surprisingly, the Jacks actually ate them! We set out some pieces of hot dogs unweighted, and just let them sink. We were fishing with light line and tiny hooks. Even when the Jacks took our bait, we couldn't set the hook. After unsuccessfully trying to catch the Jacks, we saw a huge Snook in the water, a fish on my bucket list. We couldn't catch it either. We started to catch some Puffers, Mangrove Snappers, and Schoolmaster Snappers. While I was dropping my bait down to catch them, a huge Atlantic Spadefish came out of nowhere and took my bait. I jerked the rod up and set the hook. It ran hard, but I was able to bring it very close. It was a catch! But then, it wrapped around the piling and ran too hard to stop it. It broke off my line. The Spadefish put up a great, but fast fight. Towards the end, I was trying to catch Barracudas that were on a ledge next to the dock. They attacked my hot dog when I let it drop, waited for a second, an reeled in fast, but didn't hook up. I then threw it past the ledge, and I saw it approach the bait. I set the hook hard, and it was on! I saw it flash in the water as we both pulled hard on the line. It broke off. The final catches of the day were Jacob with a Schoolmaster, Mangrove Snapper, and two Puffers, and me with two puffers, a Schoolmaster, a Mangrove Snapper, and the Atlantic Spadefish, all on hot dogs. The hot dogs were tough to fish with because the fish would sometimes ignore our bait. We'll be back to catch those giants.