Haha! Certainly great value there!

It sure is fun finding the limits of the small, cheap gear. In December I spent 3hrs on a 2.5m great white shark, using a wet-noodle kids rod and a cheap plastic reel that was the next size up from the one in this pic, but ironically cheaper than this reel. Was fun, scary, and I was sore for a few days afterwards, but on a metric of smiles per dollar spent, I think it was a winner :-)

That must have been mega-exciting. Did you get the great white all the way up to the kayak for release? And did you use steel trace to prevent break off?

Cut the leader about 1m from the shark. Was my first day trialling 10m long leaders (50lb mono) and just 6/0 sized circle hooks. Actually, they are Mustad brand and more like about 5/0 in other brands. How the mono and that little hook survived for 3hrs is anyone's guess. After 2hrs and being towed about 12kms it dived down and parked on the seabed about 50m below the kayak and took an hour to lift with the kids rod. Scariest fight I've ever had. Lots of people don't believe me, including a local boat skipper but a few weeks later I hooked a bronze whaler that was over 2m and it was greyhounding like a marlin about 30m from the kayak but only about 5m from that same skipper's boat. I think he's starting to realise that while I may be crazy, I'm honest ;-)

Amazing story. What a fight. Would have been so good to have it on video. Also amazing that the 50lb leader held up. Must have been hooked in such a way that the teeth couldn't cut through. Was it caught on live bait?

Yes, a small, bridled Kahawai livie. I guess the hook must have found a hard spot away from the pointy bits and being quite small the leverage is less because the shank is shorter. It was way too intense to get photos when it got close enough to ID and by that stage I was shaking like a leaf anyway with fear and fatigue. I did get a photo when it sounded and parked up, 2hrs into the fight. Managed to down some water and food and snap one pick. You should see that little kids rod in the pic. Talk about surviving a torture test. It was often high-sticked so much it was bending about 120 degrees, maybe more but it would not break. I'm still in awe of what it handled.