| It has been a long enduring year of fishing, much of it
conducted from the confines of an offshore boat or two, and on occasion a
few productive trips down the beach. For myself and the group that was coined
the term on the beach 'The Usual Suspects', it was a time to make a winter
journey to hang out, party, and of course fish.
Curtis followed me down and an with a relatively nice 1 1/2
hour beach drive, we finally meet up with Mr. Champ and Yakmon late
Friday night near the Port Mansfield Jetties. Not long and Skipjack, Henry,
Fullon Harvest, and Shindle randomly begin to arrive. Already late at night,
I myself break away from the group and go on a quick solo voyage in the channel
to go gigging. With the water clear, I covered a lot of area with minimal
Flounder. The presence of Redfish, Drum, multitudes of Mullet, Pufferfish,
Eels, and Stingray made up for the entertainment. I wind up back at the truck
with a couple of Stingrays that I throw in the bait chest for later. With
everyone crashing out, I decide to get a couple hours of sleep before sunrise.
The sun comes up and the water is calm. The wind is already picking up but
not too bad.
A couple of us try to fish the rocks with slow results. Curtis
and I drive back up the beach and decide to get shark baits out. Not long
after and Shindle hunts us down and joins us. We all get some baits
out and Scott drives up to join the party and then Repofish and Val follow
shortly behind. James and Puretexan also show up during the day to take advantage
of the great conditions.
Around noon on Saturday Shindle's bait gets blasted and Scott
runs over to set the hook and hang on until crazy-bones takes over.
It was a solid fish and periodically took lengths of drag. but
after walking down the beach a couple hundred yards he is able to subdue
the beast. His reward, a very healthy and fat female Sandbar Shark we estimate
close to 200lbs.
"Check out my reel baby!"
"Arrrrrrrrrggggghh!"
A few pics and the Shark has no problem swimming off in the
chilled clear water. Shindle takes time and gives thanks to the Shark Gods
(or the Kraken) for providing the thrill of a solid winter time shark.
We briefly celebrate and start heading back to the camp and get a couple
more baits out.
Curtis who has already slammed a couple Pompano on the longcasting
rod, pulls in a unique catch. Apparently we have been infiltrated by Pufferfish
(Striped Burrfish). We hook into a few of these gentle aquatic hedgehogs
and release them so they can terrorize some pompano fisherman down the beach.
Ready for release.
We continue to randomly hook into Pompano while Skipjack is
back at the jetties hunting down Sheepshead. Shindle and Scott pack up and
head back to the main camp near the jetties. Curtis and I still have a few
baits out and start getting nailed one by one. The sun goes down and we begin
to see activity. After a while I finally get hooked up on a shallow bait
and land a fat female Blacktip Shark.
A quick photo and the shark is released to head south for the
winter. I still have a couple rods out and while Curtis decides to pack it
up and head to the food and fun, I duke it out and get a couple more runs
on Stingray before the sharks wipe it clean without hooking up. I finally
head back to camp around midnight and take part of the night-time festivities.
The next morning the conditions remain moderate and while the
forecast was calling for a strong south-southeast wind, it remained tolerable.
Around mid-day everyone but Curtis, Bruce (Puretexan), and myself leave and
us remaining think of a gameplan to continue the hunt for toothy critter.
It is decided that we would fish and run baits off the rocks.
After a couple hours of prepping and making specialized leaders
and then hauling gear out to the rocks, we get our first baits of the day
out. Despite the beautiful conditions things remain slow.... until sunset.
As the sun is going down on the horizon, my super-six with a plate size ray
I caught early gets picked up and dropped... and picked up again.
It then slowly takes line and then I engage the reel and hit
him... at that moment and less than 50yds off the jetties we see an explosion
and a very massive Sandbar Shark goes aerial creating chaos on the water.
On its last breach the shark gets wrapped up in the leader and I begin hauling
in what felt like a sunken ship for the next 10 minutes. About 30-40 feet
out I lock it down and put enough pressure to feel him roll out of the leader
and then have the hook come free.
A tough loss but the shark is free and I didn't lose any gear
in the process. Needless to say I yak more baits out into the cold and calm
darkness. Curmit soon gets a bait picked on an EC CLASSIFIED shark rig and
hooks up putting his spinning reel to a brief and successful test. A few
minutes later we get the shark in and subdued at the waters edge. Curmit
has landed a nice and welcome winter-time Bull Shark from the rocks.
A quick pic and we get her back on her way. By now it is around
8pm and we re-rig and deploy a few baits. I have out two Drum and a
Stingray out while Curmit goes with the secret Hardhead weapon. All
but one bait gets hammered in the course of a couple hours. While the large
obvious teethmarks are present in the bait, the sharks are cautious and are
'teething' the bait rather than eating it.
We duke it out for another hour or two and then decide to call it
a day. We pack up and get bac to the trucks and are ready for the long voyage
off the beach.
Overall it was another great trip and great fun with a
great group of friends. Winter can be an excellent time to fish along the
Texas Coast and on these short-notice weather windows, you have to take advantage
of the situation. But then again, we have always had a great time in all
conditions whether it were calm and clear or torrential and violent storms.
It is us group of guys (and girls) who share the common desire to have fun
and enjoy the elements, all elements, and it is us the Usual Suspects who
will live it over and over to the fullest extent.
Until next time, Happy Holidays from EC (and Richards 'Beach Patrol Unit')
- Oz and Crew
(...too much partying can result in being a cruel yet entertaining device)
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