| PINS Rockstar Surf Report
Padre Island National Seashore,
TX
December 29th-31st, 2006
Report by Moose |
After a long cold spell, the sometimes
wonderful winter weather of the South Texas coast settled in for a nice warming
trend. The water temps climbed and soon the fish returned to the surf zone.
Unusually high tides had done the work of a thousand bulldozers, pushing
the debris and trash of the 2005 hurricane season up to the dunes and left
the beach in flat hardtop conditions. Thankfully most of the lumber riddled
with nails was pushed away and once again we could drive without worrying
about the minefield of tire shredders.
Old Salt and I decided to try our luck on the sand after being deprived of
that gritty goodness from holiday travelling. We would make our final stand
of 2005 in attempt to close the remaining point spread of the High Island
Fin Hunters. We ran into RaiderRed and Curmit as they were coming off the
beach with reports of bites, runs, cut-offs, and a shark landed by Repo down
at the jetties. Things were sounding good, at least better than they had
been for awhile.
We hurried down to a promising spot where the blue water was creeping in
on the surf break and began the long battle. Rick, Animal, and other TAMUK
anglers decided they would volunteer efforts also in the search for the fish.
Bait was there but not thick, we were able to secure an arsenal of fresh
morsals to tept the tastebuds of the toothy-kind. With the sun hanging in
it's final hours of the day, the nearly forgotten screem of the reel broke
the silence of crashing surf.
Old Salt dug in and fought the beast with his brand new custom Harrington
until the fish hit the sand. He landed a very aggresive 6'5" Sandbar, she
did not want to be on the sand and fought us hard while we were removing
the hook. Obligingly, we returned her to the water where she took off with
no problem.
While still catching bait, Old Salt and I both found the Pomps. I tried
tonegotiate Salt's pomp for the smoker instead of the jaws of another predator,
but fortunately he would not give into the plea bargain
He ran the pomp out on his lucky Capt. Billy rod and paddled back. The pomp
wouldn't stay out long, as it got blasted on a run that I thought was going
to melt the side plates. He set the hook on it and it took off several hundred
yards of line before the reel stopped smoking. Luckily he got the fish turned
and headed back in the right direction. This was 'the fish'. After several
bouts of gain line - take line, Salt got it over the bar and into the wade
gut where the fish sensed the shallow water, spit the hook and took off.
The smell of defeat was way too thick in the air as we agreed it was probably
a 7'+ class Sandbar. The one that got away.
But we picked ourselves right up and kept grinding away. Darkness fell and
the reds showed up.
Another one of Old Salt's baits starts to run and he got on it. After a bit
he lands this little Bull.
Another big red came through and picked up some cut whiting in the wade gut.
We called it a night and started to pull in the lines. During the retrieval,
a Blacknose grabbed his bait and came in for some bonus points.
We headed off the beach and decided that if the conditions held we would
bomb back down tomorrow and try again. The next day came and we found the
exact spot we were at the previous day. With a cooler full of bait caught
from the day before, we ran a spread of lines out in some pretty rough
conditions. We were determined to repeat the earlier results and sure enough
it happened just like clock work.
Except this day would be the slap in face. We had run after run, but could
never get them to hook up. The fish would pick it up and run 20 yards and
drop it, then come back in 5 minutes. Out of all the runs, there were two
that could have been big fish. Old Salt had one screem his 6/0 but missed
the hook, and I had one that smoked my 9/0 but broke off before I could get
it out of the rod holder. Finally Salt got one to stick and he landed a little
Black Tip that wasn't quite 4'. We left that night decided that no matter
what we were going to give it a third try tomorrow.
Sat, the 11th hour was upon us and we came back with some reserve troops.
Curmit, RaiderRed, Kip, and Shindle joined us once again at our lucky spot
for the charmed third time. This time the fog would settle in for some spooky
bait deployment that limited visibility to less than 50 yards at times. The
surf was still churning but the blue water was still close beyond the breakers.
With some special baits given to us by Skipper, we placed them at critical
spots. It wasn't long before Old Salt would once again get the screeming
reel and he fought this nice and fat Black Tip into the sand.
Rods were bending over up and down the beach in our vicinity, but the hook
up was hard to come by. It was the same story...hard runs, but no solid hook-ups.
I got all of my shark lines out and started after the pomps. The bite was
slow but I changed bait strategy and started to catch the silver slabs. Within
ten minutes I had a pair of nice pomps in the cooler waiting for the brine
and smoke. Just after landing the second pomp, my 9/0 gets slammed and I
grabbed it quick. Quick enough to bury the steel in the corner of the mouth.
Fish on! I got her into the break and then had a hard time getting it over
the bar. It felt like the big sandy I wanted, and would take a couple of
yards for every foot or two I gained on her. Finally after getting her into
the wade gut, we realized that she was just a regular Black Tip who had entangled
with a couple of RaiderReds lines.
This would be last of several good fish caught and lost over the last 3 days.
The fog was thick as ever and we were happy that the fish had showed back
up so we called it a night and headed back to town for the New Year. Although
we didn't quite catch up to the High Island boys, we finished off a really
tough year with a last stand that will be hard to forget. We had a great
time and enjoyed spending some quality time back on the sand with fishand
good friends.
Bring on 2006
- Moose
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