A few years ago, back when I lived on the south coast, I was fishing a summers evening on my local beach at Eastney. This is not a renouned Smoothhound mark, in fact they are very rarely taken from there. I was targetting Bass, Black Bream and Red Mullet, fishing two rods with two hook flapper rigs, size 1 hooks and ragworm tipped off with a sliver of squid for bait.
It was a canny session; I had a couple of Schoolies and a fair few baby Bream. About 11pm (well after dark) I was reeling in my closer in rod when out of the corner of my eye I saw my distance rod (CME, 6500 mag) suddenly fly out of the tripod and go horizontal to the beach. I was very lucky, I was stood right next to the tripod when this happened and was able to grab the rod with my right hand and quickly put the other one down. This all happened incredibly quickly and I have no doubt that if I had been more than 5 yards away from the rod it would have been in the sea and half way to France before I could react.
This was the culprit, only a baby really weighing in at a smidgeon under 11lb:
As I wasn't expecting Smuts I didn't have the drag loosened off on my reel but even so a double figure hound is a very powerful fish and will empty whats left on your reel pretty quickly unless you are nearby and ready to grab your rod as soon as you get a run. Every year lads on the south coast lose their rods and reels to smuts taking them out to sea when they weren't paying attention. Fish two rods if you wish, it is not a risk I would take and also bear in mind that Smuts will take fish baits, they move in big shoals so if you get one one one rod you may well get a take on the other at the same time...