2-22-07 Padre Island National Seashore Report

Surf Conditions

Jabroner and myself made it out to the beach about mid morning. The surf was pretty choppy until the 17mm where is seemed to calm down. The green water was just past the third bar and murky into shore.

We stopped at the 17mm to fish for bait. I heard catching bait was hard. So we decided to work the pot holes down the beach. We caught whiting at each spot, but you had to fight off the hardheads to get to the whiting, but we caught bait all the same.

We set up camp just south of the 20mm to fish for sharks. Shortly before 4PM, we had signs of life with rods bending over and line peeling off. However, hooking up proved to be difficult. Eventually, I did get hooked up on a whiting in the second gut. After a short fight, a blacktip was on the beach.

BeachBum hooked up

BeachBum with a 4'10.5" blacktip shark
Tagged & Released

We had five rods out and it quickly turned to only one out. New baits and more yakking fixed that problem. Then we were back to missing more hits. After dark, Jabroner hooked up on a blacktip.

The hits kept on coming. Most were solid line pulls. I believe most of the fish were in the 4 ft to 5 ft range due to the hits and the teeth marks. Nothing big. It looked as if the sharks were just picking up the baits and holding it with their teeth without trying to swallowing it. By the end of the trip, we had 19 hits. The water is warming and the fish are there. Get out there and get ya some!