Corpusfishing.com

[Towboat Trash]

"When I wade into the surf, and swinging the rod forward, see my weight and bait disappear beneath the water, then there comes a feeling which it is hard for me to describe. A feeling of expectation, certainly, and of hope, and yet with it, something akin to awe. I perceive the wide ocean before me, reaching to my horizon and to an infinity of other horizons beyond. The waves come rolling in, to break far out, to gain in volume and to break again at my feet. Gulls dip and swerve, and hover in their feeding, and their wild cries sound above the roar of waters. And as my eyes sweep over the scene and consider all those great creatures who dwell beneath the waves, and who even now may be investigating my bait, then, as I say, a sensation of something near to awe comes to me. I feel my own unimportance in the scheme of things, my presumption in casting this ineffective hook and slender line into the deep. There are tremendous fishes there in the water before me. Great porpoises have disported close inshore, diving and bounding through the waves like miniature submarines. Huge, man-eating sharks there are, too, for I have both seen and felt them at the end of my line. Tuna perhaps, of a thousand pounds or more; mossy-backed sea turtles and stingarees, and a multitude of others among the kindred of the sea. I meditate upon these facts, when suddenly, as I stand, there comes a shark jerk to my rod. I set the hook instinctively, before my conscious mind has time to switch to the problem in hand, and all sensations are swallowed up in the joys of the battle."

Heilner, Van Campen and Frank Stick, "The Call of the Surf," Doubleday, Page and Company, 1920, pages 8-9


"Look! Look!" he screamed, pointing toward the outer edge of the rip. I looked, and saw a great flock of jabbering, fluttering gulls dipping and hovering over the water. Beneath them the surface of the sea appeared to be convulsed by a huge maelstrom. The spray was thrown hither and yon in short, angry smashes. Tails glistened and were gone, white sides gleamed for a second in the sunlight. The ocean was strewn with bits of dead and dying mullet. As far off as one could see the gulls were winging to the scene with frantic speed.

Heilner, Van Campen and Frank Stick, "The Call of the Surf," Doubleday, Page and Company, 1920, page 135





Since the beginning of time man had two choices. Either hunt or get off your a** and grow something. Or starve. And then came politicians, and Wall Street. But those are another matter for another day. Two rods lie on the drivers side of the rod basket, and they lie there in silence, waiting. They are dogs waiting to hunt, they are long rifles waiting to be sighted in and let fly. One bullet one kill. One cast, only ONE first presentation. Bob Bennett taught me that. One time. If you get more than that you are now lucky. "They've seen that one before, Colin." Truer words never said. As I drove that morning in the 530 am darkness hour before the dawn, I knew to whence I was going. To my nemesis. The giant trout had seen my truck before, and I knew it. I silently cursed the extra large red coloration of said giant school bus four wheel drive fishing contraption that was my surf rig. She had seen it's shadow in the later afternoon sun, and she had seen all the lures in my box and she wasn't interested. Nothing I could do would make her eat. No amount of surface or suspending twitch bait action could cause her to change her mind. And I flat out REFUSED to catch her on live mullet, no way, no how. There's tide runners in the surf and there's hole lurkers and she was the latter. She had been hiding in this surf hole, covered in froth water for days. She had it good and she knew it. The hole was in the shape of a portobello mushroom smashed flat. The kicker was it had a wicked back current rip which was helping her lay on bottom in rest until bait would funnel directly across her head. All she had to do was lie there in ambush, in hiding, until bait CAME to her. "If she had gave it up easy this would be over," I thought as I drove through the early morning's mist. But as all my efforts were to no avail thus far, I was now completely and totally obligated to continue to try. The dawn was barely lighting up the dark beach when I reached the hole. Parking 300 feet down current, I snuck up to the hole with all the vindictive pointedness of every evil nasty feline that ever peed on a man's truck overnight. Before there was even any indication of the approaching dawn I threw my first cast directly over where she would be. The water and sky were one and the same, sharing a darkness that could only exist before dawn. In sharp contrast, as sharp as a razor, my first lure sailed out. As I walked it across the hole several mullet jumped, my lure had spooked them. So--they were spooky this morning. A beach fisherman must know the attitude of the baitfish, are they spooky? Are they jumpy? Are they lying in a wade gut overnight without a care in the world, just facing every which way? The night before there had been mullet rafted up by the thousands between Packery Channel and Bob Hall pier. This morning might be the last day to catch her on lure, as the bait had thinned down in the area but when the fresh bumper influx from up north got down this far south, it would be over unless I switched to mullet. Keeping my feet on dry sand, I hunkered low lest she see me. This was no bay trout, this was a worthy adversary born of the terrors of the surf, the sharks, the dolphins, the giant bull redfish, and of course-the lowly stinking rotten surf lure fisherman. Would my deceit be enough, thus was the question. I swapped up lures to the Skitterwalk in white and yellow and let my best fly. SPLASH! 20 feet away mullet jumped left and right, she had missed but my lure had fired her up from peaceful slumber. She felt like eating again. We were now 35 feet south of her hole, at least I had drawn her out of her comfort zone. SPLASH! Even further south, a chased line of mullet jumped in locomotive style fashion from north to south. She was on the move! I ran south with all the barefoot urgency I could muster, and put a Top Dog Jr. 20 feet to her south, when SLAP! She had whacked it! Her length and her spots flew into the air in a body roll on her attack and the sight of her in all her speckled surf trout glory put goosebumps down my arms. It was her! I prayed the fake hard body of my lure hadn't turned off her bite! Switching up again to a larger red nosed white body Top Dog I launched once again in a school of mullet jumping every which way. It was pointless. She had turned off to me once again. For an interminably long time, I continued casting, working my way up and down the gut in which she had been. Changing up lures one more time, I put a brand new out of the box Top Dog Jr. in bone across her hiding hole for a last ditch effort at surf fishing victory. SPLASH! She hit it with all the ferocity of ten thousand paper thin mouth surf trout! With shaking hands, I backed up to the dune and could do nothing but hold on as she pulled drag off the Shimano Ci4 with zero regard to my protestations. Tripping over a beach log, I uprighted myself and resumed the fight. She was still there. Running to the water, I regained my lead on her. Backing up yet again to the dune, she finally turned her head to the beach and took one more good run before I turned her head again for a last time. The fight was over, the battle was won. With trembling fingers, I looked my adversary in the eye with love and adoration for such a noble fish. Long live the surf trout and long live the challenge of it all.



God bless Padre.






Cheating?


What a day.


What a hole, what a canvas to paint a picture with a man's lures.


Pompano!




Hi there Jack Crevalle! Go back and get bigger for me!


And more!


And much to my surprise, dolphins! There were two visible, hunting in the wade gut and across the 1st bar to the backside. Corraling mullet, they were almost beaching themselves.


Do you see?






And the black visible coloration on the dolphins dorsal fin gave me pause. Barnacles?? I had to look this one up. Thanks Charles. Anyone have any ideas to the contrary?

Link attached for clarity of the "barnacle" theory.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13127-020-00434-3?fbclid=IwAR1T_QemFVGGjYYzvy_Xl0KfU7zaWbey3n_Y3NoMs2RR4w-6UYxi6KGWMgU






Pretty cool nevertheless.




And each day brought more pompano.


Shark! What a beautiful healthy juvenile blacktop. Look at that coloration.




Just copper.


And the fishing eventually got so good I had to sit down. Every cast. Doubles of SOMETHING.


What a beautiful black drum pup. Surf drum. Perfect eating size.




Who can guess what this is?


Too cool, right?


This is tar washed up from a ship down around Brazil that was sunk in 1944 in there somewhere.


Link attached for sheer awesomeness of it all.
https://www.tpr.org/environment/2021-09-16/mysterious-boxes-are-washing-up-on-texas-beaches-what-are-they

This stuff just fires me up. Love it. These rubber bales were sunk on a ship in 1944 off Brazil. And here they are washing up today. Even more, since this is WWII era and these ships are just now breaking up, and since there are so many ships sunken during that time period, what else might we see in the future?




Too cool!




There's nothing like our beach anywhere. Nothing. The sheer freedom of so many uninterrupted miles of the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world cannot be overstated. Whether its solace, adventure, peace, quiet, mystery, beachcombing, fishing, birding, or just taking a GOOD long HARD look at the measure of man you are, it's right there waiting on you. And it's always right there where you left it. Do you do the right thing when no one is looking? Do you kill just to kill? Protect what we've got and help others to understand as well. We are the protectors. With so many of the old ones gone, it's up to us now. God Bless Padre. Take best care and best fishing.

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

www.padreislandexpeditions.com

[gulfpredator1]

I always enjoy your posts Thanks for them always
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just get started

[Central Scrutinizer]

Very cool!!! Now I have an answer to what was a similar 'box' I found near Newport Pass this past summer. I've seen chunks of tar that were similar, but as for this rubber being squishy and a 'square', that describes it perfectly. Thanks for the link.

It reminds me of the syntactic foam that washed up after Deepwater Horizon and everybody scratched their heads as to what that honeycomb looking stuff was. Excellent detective work.

[Towboat Trash]

[ziacatcher]

Great report and pics as always. Thanks

[saltyhook]

Fantastic writing,the thrill of the stalk had me gritting my teeth in anticipation. Great beach info with great photos, most enjoyable .
Colin I did not know you had read "Call of the surf" , the first book published on surf fishing . A real classic .

Thanks for taking us along with you Colin, it was thrilling !
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Fishing is not a matter of life or death it is much more important then that !
Saltyhook

[Dubdee]

Nice trout. And you're right; nothing like our beach in the world. No doubt the sociopaths in the government will try to exercise their control over it in the not so distant future.

[Chiken97]

I log in hoping to see a post from Towboat. I guess it is my lucky day! Always enjoy the insight & stories. Thank you

[Sinker]

Thank you for the report.

[OSO YAKMAN]

Great report and pics. Thanks for all your reports. I always read them to learn something new. PINS is one of a kind.
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Be the kind of man that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says "Oh Crap, he's up!"