What was it?

G'day, last night i was fishing a 2-hook flapper with smallish baits until the plague of whiting forced me to cast out a 5/0 pennel loaded with lugworm, squid and mussel. After 10 mins the usual whiting rattle stopped, the rod tip bent all the way over and the grip lead sprung.... all I brought in was the front-end of a whiting. It was chewed through, not a clean bite. Next cast I only got a head back.
I was fishing in between clean and rough ground on an ebb tide.
Any suggestions what it could have been?

could have been a huss, doggie, conger or just a very big crab

Cool username

Would probably be helpful to know where/when you were fishing, then atleast I'm sure some of the pro's on this site could help....I'm sure

Tope? They are on the prowl for whitting at this time of year. Next time let him run, only strike when he stops.

OR

A seal.

were where you fishing doubt it was a doggie or crab they wouldnt have pulled the rod tip over more than likely a tope.

I was fishing the Western side of Kinsale harbour. The thing was, once the tip bounced back up I gently took in line slowly to try feel if there was any weight on the end of the line. I gave the fish every chance to come back for round 2. But as I said once I thought i'd waited long enough all i had was half a whiting corpse. Didn't help that in my excitement at the big bite i kicked over my gas lantern and nearly set fire to my eskie.... so theres a good minute in between where I couldn't really see what the F!ck was going on

it happens to us when fishing along ennereilly in wicklow , whiting been bitten in half turned out to be CUTTLEFISH !!

over the western side of kinsale harbor was it near the dock bay the rocks around there hold a lot of conger or there can be a lot of ray at times in the harbor

It could of been any of the above suggestions...... thing is ul never know, thats the joys of fishing. Similar thing happened me before on tramore beach except it was a small coalie that got chewed up...