Corpusfishing.com

[Towboat Trash]

" The wind had died down, so that the sea lay like some great burnished plate of steel, with hardly a ripple disturbing its surface. The sun blazed from out a soulless heaven with fiery intensity and the hot, cloudless sky reflected in the water a peculiar greenish gray.

The sea on all sides of the boat was swarming with bluefish. Everywhere one looked bluefish were dashing here and there in their mad rushes after the small fish. These were leaping wildly along the surface in vain attempt to elude their pursuers.

Every few moments a big blue would shoot out of water, to fall gain with a great splash. The water resembled a maelstrom of from the the frantic dashes of the fish.

We at once commenced to circle, and so plentiful were the strikes, and so fast and furious the sport, that at the conclusion of twenty minutes I was only too glad to snatch a brief rest from my strenuous labors."


Heilner, Van Campen and Frank Stick, The Call of the Surf, Garden City, New York. Doubleday, Page and Company, 1924. p. 153.



The shimmering Gulf lay totally and hopelessly flat as a tiny freshwater pond in the overnight hours. The winds had been relentlessly heavy out of the north for days but had finally shifted to a light northwest by westerly flow overnight while we slept on the north end of Padre Island's beachfront. Morning would begin like always an hour before dawn, out of the rack, make coffee, fill the thermos and the mug. The routine never varied, it couldn't. First sip of black Joe as the light rose over the Gulf, a new day and a new beginning for both fishermen and fish. The night had passed quietly and only the squawk of a rogue reddish egret white morph had broken the silence of occasional wakefulness on a deserted beach, thinking thoughts of the day to come. No fisherman can sleep harder than the fish his first night on the sand, the connections of the next day's possibilities run through one's head like ping pong balls as every fisherman thinks of the fish, and what they might be doing out in the dark deep depths. The morning had passed uneventfully with the exception of several schools of black drum, a quick limit for 2 fishermen. The goal was pompano but the pompano were not feeding heavy yet as the tide remained slack, pushed out by the overnight west wind. Outgoing tide begun again in ernest at 1000 hours with a low water predicted at 1500. The water was clear. Each man's footsteps blew grains of underwater sand up into the salty froth around each step taken in the surf. A still fisherman could watch each sand grain fall back down again around each foot as the current lay still and the Gulf lay dormant of visible life. The occasional mullet school would roll down and in with laxadaisical abandon, without a predator to give chase. The morning gave way to mid day noon and the steady hum of a surf fisherman's existence and work had produced a few slot reds, a few bulls, a few pompano and the drum. The frenzy had yet to materialize as the water shone like glass and the silence of a windless beach amplified every unnatural sound produced by man. If there was a time for silence and gently closed doors, this was it. Superstition resides in every fisherman, given a voice and a medium every sane and rational man would begin to believe the wive's tales, the superstitions, the stories that give way to habits such as never whistling on a boat or on a surf hole. Lunch was eaten, grilled panini with ham and sourdough and white cheese slices with poblano peppers sauteed to perfection; alas, the complete refutal of fishing, or perhaps the greatest compliment to it. Lunch was broken by one more sizable pompano, and then it was time again to keep hunting to a new hole, a new gut, a new pinch. The structure of the surf zone's sand was quite visible to even the most untrained eye, but the water remained low and clear as gin. The wade guts were lifeless as the clear low tides provided shelter to neither bait nor the occasional predator. As in every fisherman's self discovery, every fisherman's quest, the hunt remains solely between predator and baitfish. The realization occurs that maybe we are only temporarily intervening and obstructing in that timeless tradition, and our success as fishermen lies in the understanding of that relationship between prey and predator. Every fisherman's success leads to more questions than answers, in that there is truth for the ages. What occurs after our short stay is over, where and what are the fish doing once we are gone? Where do the miles of mullet during the fall migration on the beachfront go? Where are the larger predators in such clear conditions? The answers can never be clear or the quest to understand the misunderstood would be over and man's quest would end. Since recorded history we hunt, we search for answers, we delve the unknown and we challenge ourselves. Enough is never enough and the desire to learn drives each person, how much depends on who we are inside, what molded us in early years and what makes us tick. The day began to wind down and other than a fast and furious solunar run of Pompano in mid afternoon, the minor period was over and prospects for sheer surf insanity were dwindling as quickly as the old Island of Padre can kick a man square in his frontal area. And that is when it appeared. At first, the gut began to the north, a curious collection of wave rippled sand with no defined bars that ran from north to south about 900 feet in length. It's width was unnaturally wide, from the second bar back to the beach, but without the typical point that often juts out from the beachfront in a noticeable manner. Captain Billy Sandifer's voice rang in my ears as I slowly crept at 5mph in first gear reading it's contents. "Like an inverted mushroom, the point lay at opposite angles from the normal..." I could hardly believe my eyes as the extended dead zone of shutoff sand guts terminated right into the open arms of an inverted closeout gut. It lay like a shimmering diamond in the rough right before our eyes as I came to a complete stop. It ran 400 feet to the south where it opened up into a typical wade gut with rip that was currently not in use but it's rip gut cut right through the first bar out into the next 6 foot deep gut beyond the bar. THIS WAS THE SPOT. We quickly set up camp, set the campfire hole and placed the kindling and oak wood. I showered and changed into fresh clothes and prepared for what I hoped would be correctly incoming into our location right at dark. All day the bait had been deep, and all day the tide had lay dormant under a slight west wind. Too many fish, too many predators, too much clear water and too many cottonpicking vehicles blasting aimlessly up and down the beach, with no fishing gear, taking advantage of the good driving conditions to just ride had spooked the fish from bait to predator out deep. There was a wind shift predicted after dark as well as a rising tide. The time was nigh. Three rods were set just south of the closeout gut's pinch over the bar, and three more were set inside the bar but against it, up in the slack water channel where the first mullet to jump the bar would go. If my hunch was correct, all "Hidin' Biden" was about to cut loose, and there would be no shelter for man or beast, friend or foe. We had fished faithfully all day, but that meant nothing. Absolutely, positively, nothing. Nature remains 24 hours and our 10 hours of fishing so far remained just that, a small percentage of the number of hours in a day. Just as the last ray's of the sun set behind us through the sea oats, we picked up 2 more drum, then 3 more drum, and then a rogue bull red. Then a slot red. It was then completely dark when it happened. The wind shifted to the south with a gently 5 then 6 then 7 mph rustle. The first wave all day to wash under my truck tires took me by surprise and as I rigged up our headlamps for the night. Turning it on to check for operational status, it's beam shone out briefly over the now totally dark inverted closeout wade gut. The moment it hit the water, an explosion of mullet happened with such ferocity that it shocked even I. The mullet had jumped the bar and filled the gut with the finally rising tide and wind shift! Every single rod we had out, all 6, were violent snatched and all six reels lit up the night air as all six spools dumped mono into a black Gulf. I snatched the cast net, and first cast dumped 30 mullet on the beach and from that moment on, every live mullet double drop tossed out into the night would light up in under less than a minute of hitting the water, sometimes instantly. Words became shouts of unintelligible gibberish as two very sane men lost their minds a little bit and each flash of a light out over the inverted closeout gut would show fish skipping across the water biting after mullet and from the first bar to the beach thousands of mullet jumped for dear lives and giant schools swam every which way under a moonless but starlit sky. And for two hours, I didn't want any more. I prayed for it to end. I prayed for the destruction on man and gear to end, knowing full well that I wouldn't stop until it was over even though my companion had sat the rest out already. And just like that, at 2130, it ended. It was over. The mullet disappeared FULLY and ran back down the beach and scattered. The closeout gut was once again lifeless except for the occasional redfish or drum, but at that point, we were both content to sit by the hot oak wood fire, recounting the day's events, the fish that we let go, the ones we kept, friends we saw on the beach, those we hadn't, and for a moment in time there was no moment but the then and there and all was right as we drifted off to sleep, sore bodies but refreshed souls---the whole point of our presence in that time and space.

Morning red.


What a fatty.
















HOT COFFEE!




Sorry for the lack of pictures, I really didn't take any as I hadn't intended to write anything at all about this trip, and for years I've firmly hated publicizing the fishing just to inflate one's own ego, or lack thereof as it appears so often these days. It's a shame, because there's a lot of tales that could be told if it wouldn't "turn loose the wolves," as Captain Billy Sandifer told me more than once. Guess you can't take the commercial fisherman out of the boy, the best fishermen I know don't tell a soul but the Good Lord above who already knows. But I have been wanting to write fishing for a while, so for me at least, that was fun to do. Can't say it was all fun for the fish as they fled for their lives from what appeared every dang red or drum in the Gulf.

Wonder where they are and what they're doing right now?

Hahaha... Ya'll take care and best fishing,


--Colin
_________________
Protect Padre at all costs for future generations to use and enjoy and never forget our freedoms aren't free.

www.padreislandexpeditions.com

[bulldog1935]

great report as always - and it's supposed to be THE spot.

[BayFly]

I've saved most of the report for later, but you drinking "black joe" may be racist! Enjoy!

[lifeaquatic]

I am at a loss for words after each of your reports. Even to call it a report seems out of place.
_________________
kick your shoes off and cast a line

[ziacatcher]

Great report as always

[saltyhook]

FANTASTIC report Colin . The story & the writing are first class . Glad to see your enjoying "Call of the Surf " your writing is as good as Van Campen .
The luck and skill required to anticipate and find fishing of that quality only comes to a few of us after years of paying our dues on the beach . Colin said-- " I didn't want any more. I prayed for it to end. " I have been fortunate enough to have had a similar situation only 3 times in decades of surf fishing - so tired we just left them biting & hung up our rods .

Beautifully done Colin, glad to see you still have the magic ...
_________________
Fishing is not a matter of life or death it is much more important then that !
Saltyhook

[Windy Day]

Bravo!

[Towboat Trash]

[Sinker]

Thank you for the report