Surf 4/26-27/13

[JFD94]

My friend JM came back down from Austin Wednesday night to get in another round of shark fishing this past weekend, after a successful weekend a few weeks back. (See my last report if you want). He joined me and my friends Sean and Chris in our Thursday classes and then we headed home to the west end that night. Friday morning, JM and I took the boat out to some coves and snagged 4 small stingrays for bait. We then headed to the surf and started throwing shrimp for whiting. Water clarity was good. Once we stockpiled on those and mullet, we ran out some baits for a big ray. We wanted a nice big one for shark bait. No luck so we packed it up and headed back to the house at night to rig up the shark leaders and re-organize the trailer.

Saturday morning, we all headed out again to the surf all loaded up. Weather was overcast and drizzling but the wind wasn't bad. Surf wasn't too bad but could've been better. Set up camp and started setting out lines with whiting for stingrays. JM caught a nice 38" bull red early on. A little later, Chris got a black drum, spanish mackerel on a mirr-o-lure, and a nice bull red as well, also on the whiting. I tried kayaking out nearshore to drop some baits down for bull reds and maybe look for kings and smacks but the wind picked up and i was battling 5ft waves so I called it quits and came back in. We also caught a nice big ray that was closer to what we were looking for. We ran out its wings and the bigger of the stingrays from the bay along with some whiting for sharks. Paddling out the baits got difficult. A few of us flipped and the water was cold! Another group close by brought in a nice ray about 4ft across! We wanted one of those. Good Tiger Shark bait! After Chris left, it got overcast again and kinda cold. We hooked into another fish on a whiting head and let Sean's brother, Grady, take it. Turned out to be another nice bull red. Around 42 inches. After grilling and eating some dinner, everybody left except for myself and JM. It looked like it might storm, so we packed everything but the lines up in case we had to bail. While sitting by the fire, we were treated to the beginnings of a cool but kinda scary lightning show. When the rain started to come down we sat in the truck. After a while of heavy lightning, thunder, and rain, and no runs on the baits, we decided to call it quits. We reeled in the 4 rods in the rain and quickly left for my house. Sunday was nice but JM needed to go back to Austin so we cleaned up and he headed back. Not a bad weekend but no sharks unfortunately. Didn't really have the baits we wanted or the conditions so we didn't really give it a fair chance though. Hopefully he'll get back down soon once the semester wraps up. We plan to start hammering them soon, along with getting a lot of nearshore and inshore yak fishing in. ALL BULL REDS WERE RELEASED.

[JFD94]

Here are some video clips of my friend JM catching some waves in the kayak on the way in from dropping baits.

[Gilbert]

nice report. macks in the surf, trout ain't too far behind.

[Curmudgeon]

Some day I'd like to see how y'all do all this. It looks like a lot of work but quite interesting!

[FishNette]

NICE!!!

Those are some big reds!

WTG

[JFD94]

Some day I'd like to see how y'all do all this. It looks like a lot of work but quite interesting!

It's a lot of work and preparation. The shark rigs can get kinda pricey cuz we need some big/heavy gear and we make a lot of it ourselves. Then there's trying to get enough of the right bait. Summer's usually easiest with the abundance of rays but around spring it's kinda sparse and our stocks are either low, crappy, or out. Then of course there's all the camping gear, food, and other supplies. But it is definitely worth it. Lots of awesome fish in the surf and we love sharks. The trips are always a lot of fun.