Fish Catching Travel
I sit down to write this after getting back from Chris’s house where we just cleaned up the stuff after 4 days on the beach. We went to the PINS (Padre Island National Seashore) to fish the famous Sharkathon. For those of you who do not know, and I didn’t, it is one of the best shore bound catch/photo/release shark tournaments in the country. This tournament was limited to 450 shark fisherman. Entries sold out in 38 minutes, can you say popular. Let me make this one point, you can put all I know about shore fishing for sharks in a bottle cap. But I am always up for something new if it involves catching fish.
We headed down on Thursday to get set up and wait in line to get our number for the start of Friday mornings fishing.
Here is folks lined up 4 hours. It was first come first serve to start fishing in morning.
So we scouted the beach before we got in line and found an area down around mile 30, which is a long way driving in the sandy beach. Of course that spot looked just as good as any other, so we headed back and waited in line to complete registration and get out number to check out to fish. To bad the sign in was at 10 p.m. and if I had one negative comment about the tournament it would be there must be a more reasonable time to do that. If that is the way they need to do it fine. But when we were about 50th in line and over 100 people cut in front they should at least manage that somehow.
Home sweet home.
We are fishin’ now.
Let me get right to the point as far as the fishing went. IT WAS TOUGH. The wind blew right onshore, the sargassom weed was blowing in with it with a vengeance, and the tides were high, which made it tough for us. The problem is these nuts, like my friend Chris, get in a little kayak and actually take the baits out and drop them in deep water. Kinda hard to cast a 15lb sting ray on 200lb. test with a weight that might weigh between 6 and 25lbs. At times the waves coming in were so big that even with binoculars I would lose sight of Chris as he paddled out.
I have a real respect for the tenacity that he shows. He not only braved huge waves and big currents in the Kayak, he even walked some of the baits out until he was almost throat deep before dropping then. I have been with him twice now shark fishing from the beach and when it has be man up to get huge baits out, he has done it. No complaints, just a dogged determination to fish. You can not catch fish without baits in the water.
The Highlight and Lowlights
So now the stories of the weekend, and there are 2. First the highlight. I have seen lots of things in my time outdoors. When the fawn tried to crawl in my boat this spring, that was cool. Well we almost topped that this weekend. After we would get the big baits out we fished with mullet as there is a redfish division. We would wade, and we did see a couple, but other than some jacks, a pompano, and some hard heads, it was lean fishing.
It was low tide and I was wading a wash where the first, or wade gut, washed out when I saw a shark fin, and I mean close. It was moving around some, and I repeatedly tossed my bait at him without success. It never occurred to me that it was the tail of a fish but something just did not add up. I could not get it to bite. Now keep in mind that I was less than knee deep where the surf tailed out to the shore. As it kept swimming Chris went to get a real shark bait when the fish came right at me, I kept backing up and it kept coming until we were ankle deep and I saw it. Folks I have been surprised in my life, but this was one of the great outdoor experiences of my life. It was a SAILFISH! Are you kidding me!
As both the fish and I hit ankle deep water I reached down grabbed the bill and slid him up to waters edge. I was surprised how rough the bill was so I dropped it as soon as I grabbed it. So what do I say to Chris but grab his bill and pick him up, and of course he really got a roughed up set of hands . Obviously the fish was sick because when he pulled it up it for a couple of pictures it did not really struggle. There is no way on this earth that a completely well sailfish would let you just pick him up, period.
All I can say is wow!
Another view. What a beautiful fish.
We looked him over and there were 3 things that did not look right. On one side he had a bite mark, which looked like a complete mouth, but did not appear deep enough to cause real damage. Also, if you notice in the pictures the middle of his body had a dark ugly color, sort of looked like those dead fish hanging photos. And last, on his belly it appeared to be very red and inflamed, and I am not sure what that might have meant.
So after a couple of pictures Chris held him in the water for almost 15 minutes to revive him before he swam away. Now that fish was obviously sick or really disoriented, but it did swim away. In fact, about an hour later when I was back wading I saw his sickle tail as he rode the wave on the second gut. So how do you explain that whole thing? I can’t. All I know is that it will remain in my mind as one of the coolest encounters ever. A sailfish in a foot of water! Never in my wildest dreams!
Now the lowlight of the weekend. Chris struggled all weekend to get out the big baits. Think about it. Kayaking over 4 foot rollers into a 25 mph wind. Walking bait out until his head was barely above water. He was bound and determined to catch a shark. Well finally, right before dark on Saturday, we got 3 big baits out, and it was simply a waiting game.
First one bait washed in, then another. So about 10 pm we had one bait left out. Then we heard the electronic alarm on his rod go off. I thought it was grass, Chris was not so sure. He picked up the rod and began to crank and he realized it was a fish. In the beginning he was unsure how big it was. 2 1/2 hours later we were pretty sure how big it was.
He got the fighting belt on, got down from the truck, and the fight was on. It steadily moved down the beach, and every so often would take line against a 9/0 Penn with the drag cranked all the way down. Chris would wind some, then lose more. We kept moving down the beach until he was easily 50 yards down, all the while Chris was working his butt off. I got him water, and there were a couple of other guys there slamming beers and cheering him on. This was the big one, maybe the money fish, a monumental struggle by both the fisherman and the fish.
Then it happened. The unthinkable. It came off. One minute it was taking drag, the next, a limp line. That fish came off of a 20/0 brand new circle hook. Gone. 2 1/2 hours of struggle. When the line went slack the 150 plus yards just came to the beach. There was a big grass glob on the splice between the braid and the mono, which I believe led to the hook never getting a real set. Who knows? We looked the hook over, and it was one of the high dollar coated jobs, and the paint was ground off to bare metal.
What a disappointment. When a guy works as hard as he did to catch a shark, he earned one. But that is not the fishing rules as I have come to learn. You have to pay a price, often a big price, before “it” happens. Oh yea, you hear about the first timer catching the biggest fish, or the guy with a Zebco catching a tarpon, it does happen. But for the rest of us, that is not how it is. We work, we learn, read the boards, talk to other fishermen, we do whatever we can do in our quest for that one fish that makes all the time and money worth it. Chris earned that fish, he did the work, spent the bucks, and put in his time. But for Chris, that day was not “the day”.
It was a weekend filled with hope, effort, frustration, wonder and disappointment. And it was a great time. Nothing like sand in everything, smelling like rotten dead fish, the wind howling, and tough fishing. Really, what more could a guy want. And if you think that all of that is going to have some effect you are kidding yourself. We just cleaned up the stuff, and we were talking about how we can find another person who is a real shark fisherman/kayaker to help get baits out. We talked about our game plan, and some of the things we would do differently. Looks like we are already making next years plan. I can not wait!
Sunday we packed up from our camp and headed to the awards event. Sharkathon is not only a fishing tournament, it is an event.
Billy Sandifer speaking.
Part of the huge crowd at the awards ceremony.
As part of your entry you get some raffle tickets, and when you filled out the shark survey, or clipped and tagged a fish, you would get more. I can not believe the stuff they gave away. Rods, rigs, knives, reels, hooks, gift cars, prints, and on and on. In fact, it took 3 hours to give all that away. Both Chris and I won something. So what a cool happening the whole show is. My props to the folks who put that together every year. When it is all said and done money, and lots of it, is donated for educational and other projects to benefit the sharks, the beach at PINS, and other projects. I have fished a lot of tournaments since my first one in 1975, but this was one of the best. Congratulations to all involved.
There you have it, if this was not one interesting weekend outdoors I do not know what is. I am sure I could have told it better, but there it is. That style of shark fishing is rough and tough. The equipment and prep needed to go after real sharks, big sharks, is not a game. It is serious business, practiced by a bunch of tough guys and gals looking to catch and release one of the worlds greatest fish, and do it all from shore. My respect for them and their sport grows. Thanks for reading my stuff. Think I will get ready to do a little fishing in the next day or two. Life is good.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
