Corpusfishing.com

[ShawnQ]

Sometime around 3pm on Thursday myself and Calvin finally decided to hit the beach after watching the weather forecast all week long. Calvin hadn't seen the sand since My Bachelor party in May, and had yet to land a shark from the beach. We planned to depart after work on Friday in hopes of hectic jack, smack, bluefish, and shark action.

After getting out of work a little early, we made it to the sand around 7:30pm and quickly made our way down to the 19mm where we met up with Chaser and Gringo. There was a majority vote to sit at the 19 for the night, and wake up with the sunrise and cruise the beach looking for baitfish and predators. I cast a chunk of mullet just short of the 2nd sand bar and it sat out all night without any action. Chaser caught a few hardheads but not much else. Weed was a minor problem on anything casted.



Upon the arrival of daylight, Gringo and Chaser made quick work of packing up what little gear they had used the night before, and they headed south. Calvin and I had a little more reloading to do, and followed shortly after. Unfortunately, no major baitfish or predator concentrations were spotted, so we ended up stopping at a favorite hole of ours south of the 30's. Gringo and Chaser had been there for a while when we finally showed up. They were attempting to catch whiting or pomps for bait, but couldn't lose a shrimp. However, finger mullet were fairly thick, so we decided to give it a shot.

First things first, we netted some mullet and put out about 5 or 6 rods all together. They went untouched all day long. Throughout the day we re-baited with minimal luck. We tried shrimp, fishbites, squid, you name it - couldn't buy a hit on anything. Gringo and Chaser had stopped a few miles north and caught two whiting. We couldn't buy a whiting where we were at...odd. By noon or so I had given up on fresh bait and decided to yak out a half of a frozen horse mullet and a slab of frozen jackfish. Gringo also yak'd out a jack-steak and a tail-section of the frozen jack while Chaser casted mullet and a whole dead whiting. While those sat, we continued to fish for fresh bait, reds, smacks, blues, whatever. Finally Chaser gets a hit around noon on a whole whiting in the 2nd gut. After a brief battle he lands a....SMACK? On a whole dead whiting? Nice smack though!



After eating a damn fine PBJ sandwich or two, I decided it was time to put on some sunscreen. I took off my wedding ring and placed it in my mouth and then proceeded to put the sunscreen on. I grabbed the sunscreen bottle with one hand, ring still in my mouth, and rounded the corner of the truck to put the sunscreen back inside. Just about the time I went to open the door, I hear my 4/wide start to sing and set off on a 50yd sprint...sunscreen still soaking my hands.

I get to the rod and the fish is hooked up!



After a pretty nice initial run, and a fairly stubborn fight on my 12' American Rodsmith rod, I beached my first bull in almost two years. She was a fatty and measured in at about 5'6".






While taking pics, Gringo and Calvin noticed some red stuff on her left pectoral. Not sure if it is some sort of parasite or what. Upon first seeing it, I thought it came from the heat shrink on my leader...same color, but the tubing was not torn or roughed up so I don't think it came from my leader - any ideas?



After attempting to remove the hook, I opted to just cut it to speed up the process. You know the routine, land, tag, release - and just like that she was on her way, healthy as can be.

Remember how I said I took off in a sprint with the sunscreen in one hand and my ring in my mouth? About 30mins after releasing the bull...I realize I don't have my wedding ring. I look for it by myself for about 20mins, checking pockets, my truck, tailgate, everything. Calvin sees me and asks what I'm looking for. I explain to him what happened, and tell him that I don't remember ANYTHING after i heard that drag - all I could remember was trying to get to the reel ASAP. Well, I look and the sunscreen is in the sand about 20yds from my truck. Calvin decides to follow my footprints and I keep looking in the truck. MIRACULOUSLY, he finds my ring laying in the sand a few feet away from the sunscreen!!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?! Damn good thing, she would've been upset!

Of course, that got our hopes up. I decided to rig all 6 of the shark rods we had and planned to deploy them before dark. Gringo and Chaser also rigged 4 or 5 rods and deployed them around 3pm or so. Nothing else happened for the next few hours.

After finally rigging everything from a 12/0 to a daiwa 40, we get all of our baits out just at dark. When I hit the sand after dropping the 12/0 well over the 3rd bar, I notice Calvin is at his 6/wide and cranking line. He said it had a short run while he was manning the 12/0, but then slacked up. He continued to reel and found nothing.

So, I deployed both of my 4/wides, noticed a TON of fish in the surf which was otherwise dead all day long. I saw everything from blues to jacks, some kind of shad getting busted, etc. I come back in, and again Calvin is messing with his 6/wide. This time he's pretty sure there is a fish on it, small, but a fish none the less. Without much of a fight, he lands a 48" shark, either a finetooth or a sharpnose (help me out guys):



It was his first ever from the beach and he was pretty stoked even though it didn't fight much. While handling and releasing this fish, One of my 4/wides takes off on a short 15-20yd run. I get to it and it drops it...so I go back to help Calvin. Five minutes later it takes off again, same scenario. By now Calvin has released his shark and it's completely dark. We head back to the truck to get headlamps, and get the lantern going so we can see a bit. While fumbling around with the lantern my 4/wide AGAIN takes off, the third run in about 10mins. I get to it and have a brief hook-up of a decent fish, and again it's dropped. While walking back towards the truck, the 9/0 slacks up...something cut it off, damn!

Around that time, Gringo walks over to our camp from about 100yds up the beach and says chaser landed a pomp, a bluefish, and a blacktip around 3'. Just as Gringo starts to walk away, my 6/wide starts to sing. We get to it and it drops the bait. As I'm walking away, Gringo sees it bounce again, grabs it, and sets the hook. He had a hookup for a few seconds and said the fish felt heavy. As he was about to hand the rod to me, it went slack. Upon inspection of the line, it appeared I had a knot failure! Damn...first for me. I guess it could've been a cut off that made the line curl, but looked like a knot prob...oh well.

So, we originally had 7 rods out. Only 30mins after dark and we were down to 4. The surf had picked up, the wind had kicked up, I had a hellacious headache, and it was chilly, so I decided not to yak after dark. We would wait on the 12/0, both 4/wides, and the daiwa 40.

Right around the time that Gringo rang the dinner bell, I head over to the two rods furthest from camp, a 4/wide and daiwa 40, to put shark alarms on them so I can hear them while up the beach a Gringo's Cafe. As I lean down to put the shark alarm on the 4/wide's rod holder, the reel erupts into a run! Scared me at first, but I hook up and the fight is on! While fighting this fish, my daiwa 40 starts to sing also. Calvin and I are doubled up! I am making short work of my fish on my 4/wide, while Calvin's fish is winning the battle on the Daiwa 40. I get mine into the wade gut, leader it myself, and quickly go to help Calvin. Just then his line goes slack. He thought he had been cutoff but after reeling up he realized the fish had just spit the hook. Not sure if he would've turned it, but it would've been nice to try.

My fish was another Sharpnose/Finetooth?, 4'1" - my first of either species from the beach.




This fish was by far the most aggressive and ill-mannered shark I have ever seen on the beach. It was not large, thankfully...but man was she pissed. Anytime I got near it or tried to get behind it for a pic, it would go nuts. Thankfully the hook fell out on the sand. I laid the tape on the ground for a measurement, and she flopped her way back into the wade gut and took off like a rocket! She was VERY pissed off!

Shortly after releasing the last one, the 4/wide that had 3 consecutive runs takes off again....finally the hook sets! While fighting her there was a contant headshake...rarely did she stop, craziness! Never felt a shark headshake so much. After a decent fight for a fairly small shark, this 4'2" Sharpnose/Finetooth? hits the sand:



She wasn't quite as pissed as the first, but still not too happy. I get the hook out and send her back on her way to terrorize someone else.

By now, we are down to one more bait in the water, the 12/0 with a large tail section of jackfish. Chaser has since landed 1 (or 2?) finetooth sharks and realizes he caught a line when landing one. Turns out it is the 12/0 which was apparently cut while eating dinner. After about an hour of untangling, I got all of my line back less my leader. Now, only 8:30pm or so, we have no more baits in the water. Due to lack of bait and just plain being whooped, I opted not to bother casting anything out...just chilled and called it a night. The action was hectic - we never even got to put alarms or glowsticks on the rods. All of the bites came within an hour of dark.

Sleep was good but sunrise came early.



After a brief discussion with Calvin, we decided we were content with our catches and wanted to get home in time for football. Gringo and Chaser did the same. The north wind had started blowing, chopping the surf up badly and none of us wanted to deal with it. On the way off, we saw Smitty who mentioned one redfish the night before, but otherwise nothing - no baitfish, and lots of weed.

We were off the beach and on our way home by 10:15am...in hopes of returning again in about 5 days.

Till next time,
SQ

[cimarron]

Looks like it was a splendid weekend. Dang it , why is it always like that when I have to work?

[topdog15]

If the shark's were over about 3-3.5 ft they were probably not sharpnose as that is about their maximum limit. The females may get up to 3.5 ft but very, very rarely over 4ft. Not sure what that makes those sharks, but we do not what they aren't.
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