2-26-07 Padre Island National Seashore Report

Surf Conditions

Once on the beach, we saw the water was green. However, the surf was rougher than expected. A constant break out to the third bar. Some steep waves, but they came in sets and lookedas there was a decent break period to yak baits through.

First stop was were I fished last week near the 20mm. Mainly to catch bait and to observe the water some more. Whiting were fairly easy to come by. I even managed an oversized black drum.

BeachBum with a 34" Black Drum
Released

We continued down the beach looking at different spots trying to find a calmer area to yak. Finally, we figured we were going to get wet anyways, so we settled in at a spot at the 23mm. We began to rig rods and yak them out. As with last week, the fish were still there and we got hits right away. I would yak two baits and before I could yak out my other rods, I would have hits on the two I took out. I caught a small blacktip shark on the first rod. I then caught a little nicer blacktip on the second rod.

I found myself without a rod in the water. As I was rigging up, CPTMike was hooked up on a thrown bait. The fish was explosive on the surface. He got it up into the wash, but it was still green. It ended up biting through the mono. It was another nice blacktip shark.

He ended up hooking up on a couple more good sharks. However, it was not his day. He kept on losing fish to bite offs or hooks being spat out. I missed a lot fish, but I still landed more than my fair share. However, the big one got away. I hooked into a nice fish that was very strong and heavy. It took me up current past all the rods, back down current past the other side of the camp, and then back up current again. I got it up to the bar, but I put far to much pressure trying to get it over it and the line broke. We never saw the fish, but I speculate it to be a nice bull shark.

The hits kept on coming and I landed a blacktip and finetooth sharks in the 4' range. At sunset, I hooked up and landed a blacktip shark in the 5' range and as soon as it was released I was hooked up on another smaller blacktip shark in the 3' range that I didn't bother to photograph.

At this point, all my yakked baits were in, except of the 12/0 with a whole tunny on it. We threw out baits into the first gut hoping to get some sharks there, but after the sun set, the action slowed. The fog and very moist air rolled in around 11pm and I turned in. To be continued on the 2-27-07 Report.