Okay, so it's not just me - they changed the stamina usage.

As per Amaoto, I definitely noticed that it started burning through stamina when the mob was trying to pull away. So, I carefully navigated close to the shore with the serpent following at paddle speed (yeah, longboat - karve can't take the constant chomping for too long). I actually got to the shore with my stamina bar pretty much full.

And that's where it all went south. As soon as I hopped out of the boat and started trying to drag the serpent up onto the shore, I burned through my stamina bar in less than five seconds. Like, completely. And I was decently food-buffed at the time. I tried to re-harpoon the sucker, but my stamina hadn't recovered enough to make it worth it. Same thing with trying to hit the damn thing - I had no stamina to attack it, and it just slithered off into the waves.

I just hate to have to wait until I'm nearly capped out with top tier food buffs and Draugr Fang bow and frost arrows and black metal sword before I can start hunting these things again. I can understand them wanting to nerf the exploit, but I really hope they re-adjust that stamina usage. It feels like they seriously over-corrected.