Report submitted by 'Rob'

South Padre Surf Report South Padre Island, TX September 1st, 2004 Tweet

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Weather was crappy, rain off & on, but I saw 2 Tarpon yesterday, just finished a huge work project this afternoon that I justified as reason to look again this evening. Thought it stupid with the bad weather but went anyway. Surf was full of bait, skips & a lot of sharks. Found the Tarpon in the 3rd feeding frenzy I tried. Immediately hooked a huge one, 6-8 feet, on a glow She Dog with my trout rod. Gave me one hell of an aerial and sent the little dog flyin. Went back for the big rod and bigger bait. They wouldn't touch it. Saw at least 30 Tarpon this evening probably more like 60. Skipjacks were feeding on rain minnow bait balls & I assume the Tarpon were feeding on the skips.

I chased a huge feeding frenzy for a mile or 2, bout an hour an a half. Kept running back to the truck & drive ahead of them. Had them all around me but no takers. Went back to the truck, took the hooks off the glow She Dog & replaced them with the big hooks from the offshore lure. Dog wouldn't float with the big hooks & leader, just tried to make some commotion with it and on the 3rd cast it got the attention of one.

Fight was about 20 minutes, lots of aerials & runs in out & sideways. Tried to bow to the king on each aerial, it worked. He took me about 1/2 mile down the beach & fortunately another 1/4 back up towards the truck. Put him in the water 3 times coming back. He beat the crap out of me on the way back. Check out the bruise on the right side of my girlyman chest. Been wanting to land one of these guys from the surf for a long long time. If not for Tyler I would still be wanting to.

Sorry about the crappy photo. My camera was run over by a golf cart a while back so I don't have a display & had to memorize the button order to push to get the timer to come on. I was rushing to lift that sucker up so it came out blurry but couldn't waste any more time so I took a couple by the truck too. Wish the one holding it would have come out, wanted to print it. Took forever to get the hooks out, got that soft part of the lip, upper corner. Had to cut one hook. Got him back in the water.... took a long time but was most pleased to get a face full of water when he finally took off.

- Rob

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