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[Crmsn]

After all the commotion on the boards and people talking about going to PINS and wondering exactly how bad it is and getting I decided I still had another wild hair up my... well ya know, and I packed for another trip down the great Padre Island National Seashore in hopes that it would be me catching all the fish this time.
With there only being three of us this trip, packing was a little easier. After eating a full meal of lasagne, we leave around midnight Monday. Upon arriving to the national seashore, I could tell right away, everything was worse, even the driving. There is no pics to show exactly how bad it was due to it being 12am when I hit the sand, but in comparison to my last post... it was worse. The drive was a 4 hour NON stop trip all the way to the end and this time, I was not lucky enough to have the last 30 miles being hard packed. Two thirds of the trip was spent in first gear on the high road and not single soul was passed on the way down.

Upon arriving to the jetties around 4am, the seaweed was slightly worse than last time, but still manageable with mullet running thick on the little lagoon on the channel side. After netting some mullet and rigging up my rods for sunrise, I doze off for a few hours of much needed rest. I get up at 8am and conditions couldnt be any better just like last time. I begin on my mission to catch my first jack cravelle and start baiting up every reel I have and it wasn't long before the bite was on.






The first reel to go off was my avet sx, the smallest but can still pack a hell of a punch, and after a quick minute fight I was mysteriously cut off in the first gut which meant it must of been a small toothy creature. Before I can even rebait my sx, my avet mxl goes off and starts running down the jetty. It was stripping drag and did NOT want to get away from the rocks. I started to get nervous and lock down the drag before it hits the dreaded pillars half way down the jetty and horse it in to a beautiful 28inch red.



I rebait the rod with another finger mullet and head over to the stone table to fillet the fish and before I can even get to the table my avet starts singing again. This time I let Abby fight it so she can feel the smoothness difference between an avet and a penn 9. With the drag only locked a quarter of the way down she made quick work of once again another red, but this one being too close to be legal. She threw it back and I told her not to worry about rebaiting it. 5min later I was finished filleting and packing up the fish, and Kevin comes back to camp with his first shark of the trip and once again... ITS A LITTLE GUY!!!



I promise you, I was determined to catch a jack, I was busting my butt so hard on keeping all my rods baited and in the water because I fished all last summer and didnt catch a single one. After putting the mxl back out into the first gut, and setting it back in the rod holder it begins to sing once again before I even had a chance to walk away. This fight ended a lot faster than the first one and I reeled in another nice 28 inch red. I threw him up next to the truck in the shade and decided its time to go with something a little bigger... I had two horse mullet that I had netted the night before, so I decided I had nothing to lose and that it would give me some time to fillet the other red. Sure enough as soon as I casted out and set the pole down my reel starts to SCREAM violently and I began to shake. Went to set the hook and it popped out . When I went to reel the line in, I had half a mullet that was still trying to flop around. I took last mullet and baited it up, casted and waited to no avail. When I walked back to the truck to show Abby the remaining bait I hear the beautiful scream of the avet once again... and this time FISH ON!!!! And 10 to 15min later I had this 38 inch Jack, not the 40inch I wanted but, was the fish I was fighting for.



Not much more happened from there on. We caught 4 more reds that were low 20s and released (had enough fish already), 3 monster rays and went to work on the shark reels with the jack. Had 5 runs with 0 hookups. 4 runs were on Abbys new Cedros (48 pounds of drag and howls like a monster is on the line). We ended up leaving 3 lines out over night and when we woke up in the morning, they were all tied together. Little did we know that over night something hooked up to Abbys Cedros and knotted everything up so after about 2 hours of untangling... we got this poor guy on shore.




With the help of turtle patrol and with sheer luck, he was released succesfully and healthy. Apparently the Kemp's ridley endangered turtles had started coming in that day, and why it ate 1/4 of a jack cravelle was a mystery to me. The weather started getting ugly but at least on our way out we got to see a few turtles (including 2 dead that got picked off by animals) on the beach laying eggs and a turtle patrol buggy every 4 miles all the way down. All in all, a great trip, the guys down at the end saw a few 6footer tarpon, and lots of kings. They also hooked into a few jack cravelles but were broken off when trying to leader them up. As they were walking back they brought a shark fin that was left there bigger than any fin I have seen, and kinda makes me sad to see that a shark of that mass was killed. Here is some more pics of the trip as well... Till next time, keep your lines tight!

[AcousTennis]

Sick report amigo...Definitely looked better then when i saw it this weekend....good stuff
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[jagarcia10]

Nice report. Cool pictures!

[surfdragon]

Great report and pics , Thanks water look awesome.Need to make a trip out
There,Great sunrise man.
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[Tyler]

Great pics and story. I sent you a PM maybe we can use one of the pics in the Saltwater angler.

Tyler
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[SaltyCuda]