2-27-07 Padre Island National Seashore Report

About 3AM, I was woken up to my truck shaking and the bait alarm on my 12/0 going off. I jumped out and turned the alarm off. The line was still tight. However, I did see the rod tip bouncing. I waited and then the clicker went off as line was began to pull off. I picked up the rod and pulled back. The fish tried to take off, but he was no match for the bigger reel. I woke up CPTMike to let him know I had a fish on. After 5 minutes of reeling, I got this bull shark. It had been hooked before as it had a circle hook in his mouth that someone left in it. I removed my hook and the other one before releasing it.

BeachBum with a 5'8.5" bull shark
Tagged & Released

Two hooks in its mouth

We got up at 8am to find no wind and a calm surf. Also, the water had cleared up even more. Later we would find out that there was absolutely no current and visibility was more than 10 feet. This caused fishing to be slower, but there were still fish out there. I think there were a lot of fish but since there was no current to spread scent, they would have to happen on to the bait...and they did.

Surf Conditions

In the morning, we had no problem catching whiting. However, as the day went on and the sun came out, whiting became scarce. Shrimp was going untouched. We found they we would get hits by leaving the shrimp in the white wash of the shore break. That was the only place that there was limited visibility.

CPTMike was the first to yak a bait out as well throw a bait out. He quickly had 4 hits (2 on the thrown bait and 2 on the yakked bait), but only hooked up on one of them. While fighting it, it ran in fast and spit out the hook. All were blacktips as they lit up the water with jumps and explosions.

I yakked out three rods with whiting and one with what was left of the tunny. While waiting for a hit, I caught a nice pompano. Finally, a decent bait. I thought to myself, as soon as I get a hit on one of my 6/0s with whiting on it, I will send it out with the pompano. It didn't take two long before my 6/0 to take off. The first run drop, but he came back and I was hooked up. A short fight later, I landed this blacktip.

I yakked out the pompano half way out to Cuba. Pompano is my favorite bait for sandbar sharks. 20 minutes after getting back to shore the rod took off. It was a nice heavy fish. During the fight, Repofish and Mickey showed up. They helped out with rods and and tagging equipment. When we got it into the first gut, we saw color. It was a really cool brown to copper color of a nice sandbar shark.

The bait was still in good shape, so I hooked it and sent back out. When I got to shore, CPTMike had been seeing fish in the first gut and began to throw shrimp out there. He ended up catching a nice pompano. Shortly after that, my rod with the pompano took off again. This fish ran more like what a sandbar should. It was trying to finish the trip to Cuba. After a nice fight, I landed another sandbar shark.

CPTMike rigged up his pompano and sent it out. I re-rigged my pompano which was down sized to a one hook bait.. I sent it back out. When I got back, my other 6/0 with whiting on it took off. This fish gave us and aerial display of leaps. Three back to back leaps and then it ran in on me. I thought I lost it. When I caught up to the weight, it pulled back to let me know it was still there. I landed another nice blacktip shark.

Light was failing when CPTMike's rod took off. As he ran to it, mine was taking off. I looked out to see a blacktip busting the surface. As I fought my fish, I looked over to see that the other fish was lost. He came over to help out. After a short fight, another blacktip was brought to the beach.

In the clear water, throughout the day we saw 4' blacktip sharks swimming in the wade gut and just past the first bar. We saw a school of dusky anchovies swim by. Nothing was feeding on them at that time. Later we saw large schools of mackerel jumping out of the water and chasing bait. However, they would not hit lures. CPTMike spotted a school of jacks beyond the first bar swimming with their backs out of the water. We also saw some trout, sheepheads, and cownose rays. Looks as spring is here. I am interested in seeing what the next few weeks will be like.