Report submitted by 'Oz/John'

PINS Early Winter Surf Report Padre Island National Seashore, TX December 6-8th, 2008 Tweet

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Rocked down the beach with James right behind. Curtis and Scott would meet up later in the day. Hit the beach after picking up some Stripes breakfast tacos. Water wasn't bad at first on the north end despite the wind still blowing. But decided to truck on south and try the jetties this trip due to the completion of the dredging. The sun broke the horizon and the erie atmosphere still lingered from the cold front.

Driving down I started to see a bunch of Peregrines from the 4wd sign and continuing south. Ended up seeing over a half dozen. Very cool, have to love any bird that would add a seagull to the food chain.

After racing a couple down the beach (and not keeping up), I decided to keep my eye on the water. Unfortunately there was no sign of bait or mullet in the high banks. Kept going south. James was right behind me and we met up around the turtle shack to make our final decisions.. James would stop once or twice trying for Jacks but they just weren't there. We continued on and made it to the jetties, with no one in sight. I get setup on the dredged highbanks. James goes back up the beach a ways and 'Springs' and his buddy were down to also investigate.

I slowly thaw some baits out and get some Whiting out pretty quick. Only the pesky anklebiters would be in the area though. Curmit and Scott would later show up. Both Curmit and James were both getting into the Pompano.

I get some small baits out but things are slow and some pup sharks are having a field day. I eventually a couple grander baits rigged and deployed for the evening. Meanwhile in close, we nail several Reds.

Later in the evening I get the worlds largest Whiting

Just north of us James gets a run and hooks up on a decent shark. After a while, he gets in a healthy male Sandbar.

I left baits out and had small stuff mess with a smaller bait out. Wind was dying but it was COLD. I decided to go to sleep. Froze my butt off in the tent cot. Just before 6am, while still dark, the shark alarm on the super-6 goes off. I get up on the platform and notice some bouncing. I figured a Sandbar picked up one of the 'Big' baits placed closer in. The run was slow then stopped. I got on the fighting belt thinking that it dropped the bait and hoped it was still there. Got strapped in and then felt the fish. From this point, the bait was out only about 250yds max. When I felt the fish once again, it began to run offshore and then very quick. After 2 min it had the after burners on and was absolutely smoking straight offshore.

I managed to wake Curmit up with the shark alarm and he saw me hooked up and got the release bag all packed. The fish never stopped again and continued to nuke my reel. Despite already landing two 10 footers on this reel, it was the first time I've ever smelled the grease from the drags heating up quite hot. It seemed the more I would try to lock the drag down the faster it wanted to go. As far as i'm concerned, no reel I own would have ever been able to stop this fish. Line was dumping quick and approaching the end of the spool.

The last minute of fighting the fish I knew I had no chance and had to find a way to break it off so not to lose all the line. With less than 50yds left I unstrap and grasp the spool as hard as I can and fortunately break it off. And then finally Curtis is walking up to the truck with his release kit and noticed the chaos. The whole event took between 7-10 minutes. A tough loss but interesting nonetheless. Events later in the morning would puzzle things even more. I noticed my float out there and retrieve it. Bait was hard to decide for if whether it had actually been hit or not. But the best we can gather is the following....

Apparently the fish was snooping around the bait. Somehow it managed to get wrapped up in the line fairly close to the leader hence the bouncing I saw when the rod originally went off. The shark had to have been tangled up enough and broke off the line between it and the leader with the first couple minutes leaving the leader behind and just dealing strictly with the rod and reel. From the placement of the bait, the fish would dump and additional 500-600yds on pace to spool the entire reel in just a few minutes. I spent hours and hours after thinking of 'just what it could be'. No it wasn't a boat. I also brought up the theory of a possible Dolphin or Manta Ray, but after talking with some of the oldest and most knowledgeable beach veterans they said "No way, it undoubtedly was a shark. It was sensing the big bait pacing and curious and ended up in an unlikely position before actually picking up the bait." Prime monster hour with a prime monster bait. Regardless of what it was, it clearly became the most destructive, violent run on rod and reel I ever encountered. Highly reminiscent of Kips Big Shark Avet encounter.

I wake up and replace the big baits with small baits for day time. They get nailed but mostly by pups. The weather is absolutely beautiful but the wind is changing East and picking up. We cast quite a few of baits and Curmit hammers the Pomps. Scott was camped in the channel the previous night and had a solid shark on for a while before spitting the hook. He heads over and joins us on the sand flats. We begin to hammer Reds, Sharpnose Sharks, and surprisingly Spinner Pups quite frequently.

The day went on and we caught loads of fish. The Mullet became insanely thick and Bluefish and Reds were taking advantage. Most Reds were oversized but some were in the upper slot. Often we would have double hookups with Bluefish or combos with Reds

We would nail some more Reds and small sharks through the night as the wind would pickup and switch south.

I had three large baits out during the night but surprisingly they did not get hit. I did get a pesky Sharpnose on a kayak bait which was disappointing. Come morning Curmit and I would pack up and head off the beach. Driving sucked. But despite all the events it is always home when out on the beach. I thought there would be more Sandbars near the Jetty but have a feeling they were pushed up the beach in the surf a bit. Oh well. Just have to wait til the next break in weather to go back down. Hopefully we can re-encounter the shark enigma the lies just offshore.

- Rockstars out

...And this to add to the Report by Jon aka 'Springs'

Hey everyone been checking in with the site for a while now to see how the fishing is and wishing I was down there instead of over 200 miles away. Only got to fish the surf once this year back in March. With work, school, hunting, and bike racing its hard to find an open weekend with good conditions. Well everything finally worked out and my buddy Cooper was able to make a trip down with me. Left town around 5ish made it to Corpus sometime after 7. After stopping at academy, getting bait, and fueling up we were on the beach at last. The plan was to make it to around Big Shell and spend the night there then wake up in the morning and cruise down to the jetties looking for a spot. Made it to the 25 and decided to call it a night. Woke up in the morning to this:

Packed up what gear we had out and trucked on down. Stopped at a couple of spots to bait fish and realized I left my PVC pipes back home. Oh well will make due with what we have. Made it to the jetties where the sun finally started to show and warm things up. Caught some bait and decided to head back north a few miles and set up camp. While we were unpacking decided to run a bait out on the 6/0 so we at least had something out for the day. My bait rod gets a decent hit a little later and while bringing it in I notice the 6/0 has slacked up so Cooper starts to bring it in and we find this little bait stealer:

A minute or so later I have this oversize drum on the sand:

After the release I go back to catching more bait. Finally get enough bait for that night and right before sunset Cooper runs out a 9/0, a Tiagra 30, and a 6/0.

We get a fire going for the night, cook up some deer steak, and sit around waiting for some action. Tired from sleeping in the truck the night before I lay it up for a little while only to be woke up around midnight with Cooper telling me fish on which indeed there was. We run down to the truck where Cooper gets to work bringing the fish in. Some time later it is in the wade gut and I pull it up on the sand for some pics:

A 6'11" Sandbar. This was Cooper's first shark over 4 feet and the first time for me to have my hands on a Sandbar. After the release we sat around the fire for a little while hoping for some more action. Called it a night sometime later. Woke up in the morning and my first instinct was to immediately check the 9/0 and the 6/0. Walking down to the truck I notice that the 6/0 has had some line taken out. I start to bring it in and feel some weight to it. Then it starts to make some runs.

After a stubborn fight we finally get it to the sand and notice its tagged.

This Sandbar was 6'10" but a bit chunkier than the one the night before. The tag # was 299733. Will be interesting to see when and where it was tagged. After the release we are more than pleased with the trip and decide to start packing up to deal with the drive home. We stop at a few spots on the way back to toss some extra shrimp we had but no luck. Conditions as we were leaving Sunday:

The weather made the beach a great place to be this weekend and getting into some Sandbars made it even better. Hopefully I will be back down asap with some more catches to report.

Later on.

- Jon

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