Report submitted by 'Moose/Oz'
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PINS Rockstar Surf Report
Padre Island National Seashore, TX
December 2nd-4th, 2005
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Repo and I met Old Salt down the beach
Fri afternoon and headed south in search of a good location. Camps up and
down the beach were reporting decent catches of Pompano, Reds, Bluefish,
Black Tips and one Sandbar. We found a spot and began the tasks of getting
prepared to run out some primo baits.
The surf was fairly calm and just breaking
on the first bar. We all dragged a bait way offshore in hopes of the big
one and we each staggered another bait in front of the long lines. Repo had
his second bait in hand and was getting ready to jump in the yak when thousands
of mullet all of the sudden started beaching themselves to escape certain
death. The wade gut was boiling with mullet trying to escape the jaws of
hungry Bluefish. In the midst of watching the frenzy, Old Salt noticed the
first of many dorsals cutting wakes on the surface. The whole food chain
showed up in less than 2 feet of water. I had many many mullet trying to
seek refuge behind my ankles, only to be chased out by the voracious Blues
which were being hunted by the Blacktips.
At one point I had two 4 foot Black Tips
beach themselves not five feet in front of me where they waited for the next
wave to take them back to the liquid. And just like that, 3 of the long lines
start bouncing and taking off to sea. Old Salt and I had to run to get ours
while Repo grabbed his and buried the steel into the flesh. Repo's fish was
off to the races and Old Salt and I both missed our hook sets. Repo's fish
wound taking him up the beach a 100 yards and he leadered it himself while
we were trying to hook our fish up. I grabbed the camera and release bag,
and met him up the beach with a fat and healthy 6' Black Tip.
We tagged her and got her back to the
water where she swam off like a champ. Congrats Repo on breaking the dry
spell and 6' mark. While releasing Repo's fish, Old Salt picked up the spooner
and proceed to pull in a dozen big bluefish one after the other on each cast.
Darkness set in and the wind was picking
up. We waited for some time and prepared the marinade of all marinades to
soak some fresh Tuna and Scallops in while we waited for the reinforcements
to arrive with the grill. With several lines still out we knew it would only
be a matter of time till the tide turned and the bite would resume. Thanks
to Old Salt's fire log we were able to get the flames burning and noticed
a faint light in the distance headed our way. Curmit and Oz had arrived and
were anxious to here the details of the conditions and game plans. Sure enough,
Oz was getting the 411 on what baits were out and where, when my newly finished
custom rod takes off and I made a mad dash to pick it up and bury the hook.
Fish On! It didn't take long to wear out the willpower of the fish and I
soon landed this 5'9" Bull.
After releasing the bull, Oz got a fire
lit under his butt and decided to run several baits out under a new moon
in 'starting-to-get-rough conditions'. He truly is crazy, but the determination
kept him afloat in the total darkness. By this time we had a raging bonfire
to warm up around and we began the carnivores delight. Never has so much
protein been consumed in one sitting, we had tuna, scallops, and jumbo shrimp
but we forgot the veggies, I didn't hear any complaining though. Throughout
the night each of the 4 lines still out were cut off by something, so we
called it a night and waited for the dawn.
The morning came and I jumped out of the
tent cot to get baits rigged and deployed. I dragged a fresh bait out about
400 yds and retrieved the floats and leaders from the previous cut offs.
I'll tell you this, dragging bait out is easy, but hauling close to 40 pounds
of leader, weight and bait with huge hooks sticking out back in to shore
is quite nerve racking. All I could do was hope and pray that I didn't pick
the wrong wave to surf back in on and get ejected into a pile of hooks and
leaders.
I made it in safe and had just grabbed
the handle of the yak when the newly deployed bait gets smoked. I grabbed
the rod to find an impressive force on the other end which would pull out
a 100 yards of line off the 9/0 at a time. Alright this was a good fish finally.
We played tug o war for several 100 yds up the beach and I got it to the
second bar. I had to fight hard to get it over the bars and then to the wade
gut where the leader crew assisted. Hoping to see that huge dorsal of a sandy
I was let down once again to find that the mystery monster was only a 5'10"
Black tip who had been foul hooked in the pectoral fin. Bummer, but it was
still a decent BT.
This got the whole camp motivated and
soon the plastic navy was tugging baits out for the buffet. I had a decent
pick up, but no hook up on the second of the morning which would come in
just the tail of he bait. Repo was frustrated because he had to pack it up
early and head back to town. Shortly after he left Old Salt got a pick up
and thought it missed the hooks, but the increasing slack would say different
till he reeled it in to find the resistance of a fish. At the same time Oz's
line acted funny and seemed to get hit, but we thought it might be Old Salt's
line on his making the commotion. So Oz put it on free spool to keep from
being cut off on Old Salt's power pro. Old Salt got clear of all lines and
fought the fish into shore. He landed a nice 5'11" Bull and got her released.
Oz set his rod back in the holder thinking
he still had a bait out, but he reeled it in an hour later to find that it
actually was a fish playing with his line. The bait came in with just a head
that had been neatly severed just behind the gills. Shortly after Pure Texan
and Obsessed pulled up with news of the infamous Mako at the 21. They headed
south and Old Salt and I had to be back in town also, so we packed it up.
Oz and Curmit had more business to tend to and they packed it up and headed
towards Mansfield cut. Old Salt and I headed north to to crime scene and
conducted our investigation of the 9'8" miracle Mako who at least 3 different
camps had caught by now, LOL.
....Oz man finish the rest of the story....
- Moose
Well the wind picked up and Moose and Scott headed off the beach
investigating the Mako. Curmit and I rocked down to the Jetties finding
Osobsessed and Puretexn just arriving as well. Still had a couple hours of
daylight and instead of hitting the nearby surf like we usually do, we voyage
out and fish the surfside of the N. Jetty from the rocks. With a solid 20+
wind out of the South it was really our last resort.
We had out several nice freshly caught baits including Pompano
and Stingray. Curtis runs back to the truck just after sunset to get our
headlamps and lights. After a brief interruption by a serpent I met earlier
in the day, he finally gets back as I am landing a 6'0" Bull Shark. Ironically
I am there by myself in traditional fashion with three different simultaneous
hookups on sharks.
After the pictures and the measuring, I am releasing the shark
as Curtis runs back to one of the hookups. Unfortunately one of the sharks
are lost at the rocks.. but never worry, there is another rod still hooked
up. After a quick fight Curmit gets in a 4'8" Blacktip.
After about an hour intermission of re-baiting and deploying,
we get another run and end up having to chase this one down the rocks. A
couple more pics and we release this 5'6' Blacktip.
We walk back again and Curtis' cast baits gets nailed and puts
the hurt on his coffee grinder. After a good 20 min fight we leader and land
a fat and healthy 6'2" Bull Shark. We get a couple more pics and carefully
get her back in the water.
After that we left baits out til close to midnight without any
runs. At that time we decided to pack it up and head back to camp. We reel
in the rods and all the baits were either mauled or gone therefore explaining
the lack of runs during that period.
The next morning Osobsessed and I are up walking around.. thinking
of a game plan. After a while Puretexn gets up and they end up cooking breakfast.
After Curmit is passed out asleep (perhaps caused by the mass egg nog
consumption). Regardless, he kept sleeping in so I decided to mess with him
a bit. I barricaded the door to his tentcot and tied up one of the shark
alarms. After a while he eventually did get up and break out of 'jail'.
Sometime before Curtis woke up I went over and Puretexn still
had my snake he caught. The plan the day before was to catch it and release
it behind the dunes where it wasn't as likely to strike a person walking.
We played around with Rattler for a while getting a few good pics and then
we placed him back behind the dunes to feast on the rodents and keep warm.
Super EC close-up shot.
Curmit and head down the rock once again in the early afternoon.
Our mission was to catch fresh bait. With the abundance of Bluefish and other
fish feeding on the mass amounts of mullet, we could not get any solid hookups
(fish were mostly macs). I end up catching a fresh ray and run that out along
with a Pompano Curmit caught the day before. With a ripping outgoing tide
the shark takes the Pomp and catches a free ride in the current. I was able
to turn the shark before it got all of us in jam. Get the fish turned and
in quickly and release a nice fat 5'8" Blacktip.
We would run out of fresh bait and continued to fish for a suitable
replacement. The sun was going down quick and Curmit convinced me to run
out some live Hardheads. I've caught fish on them before but would have killed
for a nice Pompano or Ray. After sunset the runs began once again. For a
while the only bait that would get hit was my live Hardhead. The poor bait
got blasted 4 times before a solid hookup. I hurry up and get in a feisty
5 1/2' Blacktip.
Not long after and another hookup this time on the Super-6 with
half a Ray. A few minutes and we get the fat girl in. Another couple of pics
and we release the 5'9" beauty.
After that we rig up again and run several more baits mainly
consisting of old rays and live Hardheads. It would remain deafly quiet for
about an hour or so with no activity. With mostly cloudy conditions and a
now calm wind, we knew the cold front was quickly approaching. Sure enough
a few more minutes pass and I tell Curtis to turn off his headlamp and look
at the sky. We see an erie wall of darkness and to see this in already dark
nighttime conditions we knew we were ina world of trouble if we didn't
pack it up soon. I paddle the kayak back to the surf while we still had the
calm conditions. As soon as I step foot on the beach the wind change and
got cold.. then it began to blowwww. I get back to Curtis and the Rods and
he lands one more Blacktip while I wasn't there.We reel in the rest
and end up getting packed up and off the rocks just in time.
Overall it was another great early winter trip and everyone
on the beach caught some toothy critters. The first mega arctic blast is
going to hit us this week and will be a test to see if the predators and
prey stick around. Near freezing temps could shut down the big game surf
fishing til March excluding a Sandbar here and there on the pristine winter
days. Only time will tell.
See you on the Sand
- Oz
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