hit the beach Saturday morning in hopes of having another epic day on the sand. i would have been happy with lots of spiny dogfish like the previous weekend, but that didn’t happen. Did have a full house though, Steve, Travis, and Jordan.  Matty was supposed to come out too, but woke up not feeling too well. Im sure hes glad he didn’t make the drive down from Hampton, we didn’t catch anything.

it was a nice day on the beach, there were more dolphins than i have ever seen, even during the summer! they were everywhere, in close, i mean close (10 yards) all the way out too as far as you could see. no real organization of the birds this time, they were diving and searching but no bee-hives at all.

only real remarkable thing i should mention was that several times the dolphin were close enough to be concerned about snagging/having them swim into your line….Travis asked me if i ever knew of anyone every hooking one. I said only one, Eric, i think hooked one years ago with a live spot while drum fishing. no more then 2 minutes later my first heaver doubles over and starts to scream, i run over and snatch it up and when i start to put the pressure on it, it starts running faster, and faster. I have never heard my SL30SH sound like that. eventually i put the hammer down, the spool melted through my glove and then burnt my thumb before the line finally popped. Flipper – 1, us – 0.

now while this is all happening my second heaver started to go, Steve ran over to get it and then his rod (far end of our spread) took off as well. he left mine for his and by the time he got there only had a few wraps left, he almost got spooled. when he put the pressure on the dolphin got untangled (i guess whats you can call it) and was free of his line. Flipper – 2, us – 0.

after breaking the line on my first heaver i pick up the second one, its pulling for a second but then stops, but there is more weight on the end. not quite sure what i have i pull it in to find that the dolphin tangled my first heavers rig with my second, so when i broke the line, it was already tangled up with my second rig, so i got both rigs back. so i guess you can consider that flipper – 2, us – 1??

oddly enough we never saw the dolphin while this happened, but there were several other times during the day that they were in close enough to make you nervous. best of all is that it happened two minutes after Travis asked about it. Time to take apart the one SL30SH and make sure its still in good working order…..

 

anyhow, till next time……….

Happy New Year!

With all the talk of big Striper and Big Blue Fin Tuna (yes i said it, blue fin tuna) being caught off the VA coast out to three miles, My buddy Steve and I decided that on a nice day, with a SW wind we would hit the beach in search of a striper that got lost and came in to close.  Bait was an issue, I prefer fresh bait if possible, but we couldn’t locate any bunker.  Steve was able to find two giant cob mullets, so between that and the frozen selection I have in my freezer I figured we would stand a chance of at least catching something.  Ok, I lied, I honestly didn’t think we would even get a bite, but it was a nice day, decent weather, not a bad way to start off the fishing season…….it all started with an epic sunrise.  When day light first started to break it was intense.  As it got closer and closer to sun rise the colors started to fade.  I did stop at the Market and ran over the dune to snap a couple of pictures.  The colors were sick!

I texted Steve to tell him I was on my way and he replies with “I’m here at BB”.  Then I tell him I stopped at the Market to take a picture of the sunrise and the response I got was “Caught Shark”.  Of course I reply with “WHAT???  Already????” and get nothing.  Maybe he is messing with me?  Maybe he is serious?  Maybe its a full out blitz and I am late????  I haul butt down to Back Bay, abiding by the speed limit of course.  Get my stuff loaded, throw the waders on the cart and sprint/power walk with all my gear down to the beach.

 

As I walk up the drive-over and dune I can see birds everywhere, nothing really organized, but a lot of flying and searching.  I crest the dune to see Steve set up in our normal haunt but I don’t see him.  I walk a little further and realize he is no where to be found….I think to myself, holy crap how big was this shark?  I walk further and notice something laying next to each rod, two Spiny Dog Fish, both about 3-4 feet in length.  They are still kicking so I snap a picture and release them real quick then notice someone walking about 300 yards down the beach.  Hoping its Steve I start to set up.  He finally makes it back down and tells me the birds started to working real hard right in the wash and then moved south down the beach, he had grabbed the casting rod and took off after them.  He also said that neither bait was in the water for more than a few minutes before getting bit.

I bait up and get one rod out, all the while watching the birds to our north and south.

They were working everywhere, close in, far out, and there wasn’t a boat to be seen.  Not wanting to have two rods out and a blitz start I only fished one heaver and rigged up another with a big popper, just in case.  With in minutes the heaver gets hit and I pull in my first Doggie, about the same size.  snap a quick pic and back he goes.

This goes on for several hours till the tide got 3/4 of the way out and it pretty much fell off.  I think all together we had maybe 12 Spiny Dog Fish.  The smallest was about 3 foot, the biggest maybe 4 1/2 foot.  Later I found out that The Little Island Pier also had an epic morning spiny bite.

I ended up calling a Captain Todd from Knot Wish’n Charters to give him a heads up about the birds.  In the past he has given me info on hot bites so I wanted to return the favor about the birds working.  At one point the bee-hive was so thick, it was probably the biggest I have ever seen.  And best of all, it was 100 yards off the beach.  We never did see fish breaking or bait busting the surface, but you knew something was there.  Several times they passed straight out from us, always just out of casting range, but still cool to see it.  I have attached two separate videos showing the birds working.

Once the bite fell off near the end of the outgoing tide that was pretty much it for the rest of the day.  It was still a fun day on the beach.  Any how, that’s it for now.  Till next time…………………….. ciao.

Bee-hive #1 – yes that is the Sand Bridge/Little Island Pier in the back round:

Bee-hive #2 – directly out in front of us:

OCT 1 – 14, 2011:

Well it’s that time of year again.  This is typically when all the big red drum, specs, and pups start their annual migration south to warmer waters.  I say typically because the season has been very slow to start.  To this date, there has only been 9 or 10 drum caught off the LIP, and less then that from the beach.  Can’t say we haven’t tried either.   A good northeast wind is favored from drum, and we have given it a try each time.  Over the Columbus Day weekend i fished 5 nights in a row, very hard, but to no avail.  There was only one caught that I know of during that NE wind event, and that was by VCAN president Mark.  Alex has caught a few as well, but its been very slow so far.  I think the main reason is the lack of bait in the water.  Mid September the mullet showed up in good numbers, and some specks and pups were caught, but then it all stopped.  For the past month the only real thing in the surf has been baby black drum, usually between 8 and 10 inches.  So many in fact that a number of fisherman I have talked to were under the assumption they were Sheepshead, but they were corrected and now know the difference.  Its good to see them, but that was it.  A few bluefish here and there and the occasional speck, but that was it.

Most of the drum fishing was done in the evening/night time, because that is the best time to target them.  a few sand bar sharks were caught, all in the 3 foot range, still some pullage, but not exactly what we are looking for.  Most of the reports we are seeing is that the spot and mullet (the Drum’s favorite forage this time of year) is still stacked in the rivers and inlets as well as the bay.  There were several reports from this weekend that the big reds are still being caught in the bay, which is good for us beach fisherman, now hopefully we will get a NE blow that will push the fish toward shore when they decide to leave.  There is a front coming in later this week if the fish decide it’s that time they could all leave at one time, which would make things interesting…..so we’ll see what happens.

 

OCT 15-16 – Birds, Bugs, and Hound Fish:

This weekend I decided to hit the Refuge and fish with some friends.  The moons and stars aligned and Matt and Ian were both able to fish the same day, so we all hit the refuge on Saturday Morning, at sunrise.  Wind was howling out of the west, which meant two things, ok maybe three.  1 – Bugs are going to be BAD, 2 – the water should be flat, and 3 – you can bomb your bait out.  Walk over the dune and find all three to be true, and then Matt yells that there are specs in the surf.  Great way to start the day i think to myself, since there has been a lack of bait recently.  Mixed in with the specks were bluefish, which was also good to see.  a few were caught, nothing of any size but there seemed to be life in the surf!  The next thing we noticed, a few hundred yards out, was a lot of birds working.  All through out the morning they worked what appeared to be bunker pods, but never came close enough to cast too.  the rest of the day was slow, few bluefish here and there.  Did manage three Sand Bar sharks, all about 3ft range.

One thing I do want to talk about that i have never seen before was once the sun got up a little bit and you could see in the water, there were hundreds of hound fish, or needle fish, EVERYWHERE.  they were chasing glass minnows and silver sides.  i’ve seen them a few times in small groups, but as far as you could see there were these needle fish.  they would come after any lure you threw at them, but never really did hit anything.  On Sunday there were more of them and less everything else.  I finally caught on in the cast net and promptly used him for cut bait, but got nothing on him either.  Very bizarre.

About 2pm on Sunday, Jeremy and I had enough of the bugs/flies/gnats/mosquitoes and decided to pack it up and head up the beach a ways to a spot that the infamous BA told me about.  The day before he slayed the specks and actually had some keepers and saw lots of mullet!  We hit the beach and found the spot that he was fishing, the wifey and Murphy hit the beach with us.  The spot we were at had a nice sand bar that jetted out, so it was good for Murph-Man to run out into the water.  We also taught him how to fetch mullet, but he couldn’t grasp the concept of putting it in the bucket after he caught it.   Fishing was slow there, no specs, 

but managed to fill a bucket up with finger mullet for bait!  We decided about 630ish to pack it up and call it a day.

It was two long days on the beach, fishing was better, but still slow for how it should be this time of year.  Hopefully this front coming this week will turn things on.  any-hoo……till next time…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

So after thinking about it the past few years this year i decided to do it, I entered the Assateague Island Red Drum Tournament put on by the AMSA (Assateague Mobile Sportfisherman’s Association).  I went up and fished with team mate Dave and another buddy, Jon.

Now this would be a good time to introduce the Back Bay Bait Runners.

This would be my surf fishing team that Matt Smith and I created.  It is basically a name for the close group of friends that we fish with.  The team is made up of about ten of us, including Dave and Sam from up in Maryland.  Things are just getting started for the team, look for big things in the future.  More about the team later, for right now, I will just say this is the first tournament that we have fished.  Well, not all of us, it was just Dave and I.

The tournament runs from 3pm Thurs afternoon till 6am Sunday Morning.  Dave and Jon hit the beach Wed night to find a good spot.  I met them just after noon on Thursday.  With time to spare before the official start of the tournament I had time to set up camp.  I sent up a tent that i borrowed from my boss and since there was rain in the forecast i strapped a tent to the back of my truck to stop all my stuff from getting wet.  I was pretty happy with my set up, which worked well.  The NWS called for rain pretty much every day, and they were right, so I am glad i had made the shelter.

I also re-spooled one of my reels and my back up reel and re-rigged each heaver just to make sure i had new sharp hooks on each rod.  Got my sand spikes out and figured out the rod placement.  Got the bait rod ready and metal rod just in case.

The main target for the tournament was Red Drum.  The other categories are, striper, bluefish, flounder, roundhead and trash fish (shark or skate/ray).  The drum category has daily prizes as well as over all.  My plan was to have two heavers out, with one bait bombed as far out as i could get it, and the other to either be on this side of the bar or in the first trough, which ever looked more appealing.  the third rod was going to be a double dropper loop rig with mullet looking for bluefish.  Metal rod was rigged with the trusted 2 oz all chrome sting silver, just in case a school of blues came by in casting range….  

Between the three of us, I think we had about 150 yards of beach taken up in our spread, and I wonder why my feet/legs hurt still….lol.  The section of beach Dave found for us looked decent.  it had a really deep inner trough, at low tide the trough was at least waist deep, some places were deeper.  3pm came and lines were in the water.  i chose a chunk of bunker, spot head and mullet on the dropper rig.  i decided to put the waders on and wade through the trough since we were close to low tide and get my heavers way out there…..well i found ALL of the leaks in my waders.  With water up to my chest, LOTS of water came in, and i was almost instantly wet.  what a way to start the weekend off…lol.  its ok though, it would rain off and on most of the weekend so i pretty much stayed wet.

Three hours into the tourney my short heaver gets slammed, this is the rod that has the dropper rig on it targeting blues, i see a good hit and run over to it snatch it up and come tight with some that is bigger then the little taylor blues we had been catching.  i look at Dave and he asks if he should call the judge.  I tell him i’m not sure (this being my first tourney i wasn’t sure….but the general rule of thumb is if you have something that feels big, call them…..).  I tell him it feels a lot bigger then the blues we had been seeing so he runs up to grab his phone.  He tells the judge we are hooked up with what we think is a decent bluefish just about the time i pull the fish on to the beach and notice the funny looking head and all white body with black horizontal lines down his side…………..that’s right its a freaking striper!  i yell to Dave its a striper and i think him and the judge on the phone didn’t believe me.  the judge shows up in less then a minute and verifies that yep its a striper and its big enough for the tournament.  The judge takes my info down and congratulates me and heads down the beach.

I asked Dave why the judge was just as shocked as everyone about the striper and he tells me that to the best of his knowledge that is the first striper caught during the Red Drum tournament in the past 10 years (since it began).  I was shocked because it was my first tournament, on the first day, and i’m already on the leader board.

The rest of Thursday was slow, we fished into the night but didnt’ catch much.  Jon did catch a good sized pompano, which we found funny catching it on the same day as I got my striper.  I got tired and climbed into the back of my truck at some point to try and catch some sleep…..things were ok till the breeze stopped all together and the mosquitoes came out to get me……and these arne’t  your average biters, these are big ones…..

The next morning (Friday) i woke up before the sun came up…tired and full of bites.  get up and get baited up and throw out the heavers and put the water pot on the stove to make coffee.  the sunrise was colorful but at first but slowly it turned to all cloud cover.  Friday was even slower and about mid day (i think, already lost track of time at this point) Dave leaves to go see if he can get some fresh bait and scopes out a spot 4 kilometers north of us and says the beach looks better….anything was better at this point, even though we had a good trough, there seemed to be an absence of life there.   so as quickly as we could, we rounded up all of our junk, running back and forth to the trucks loading stuff up.  I know the people to our north and south were looking like what the heck are these guys doing???  got everything packed up and drove up the beach and found Dave waiting for us at our new home.  It was dead low and the first thing we noticed was two cuts/out sucks about 100 yards apart, it looked better here!  The second thing I noticed was the dark clouds that were creeping up from our south west….knew they were calling for rain and was not really looking forward to it!

That day (Fri) was the most productive, we caught a bunch of little pompano, bluefish, baby black drum, small flounder, small dusky, small smooth doggie, but nothing big enough to enter into the tournament.  the storms came and went, had several low booms of thunder, but nothing to get scared about.  we took shelter inside the trucks while the monsoon came down (and it came down), once it was over we put the lines back out and enjoyed one hell of a sun set, but with the wind shifting directions and the storm, the weeds go real bad and made it very difficult to keep lines out.  We decided about 930 to call it a night since it was pretty much un-fish-able.  i slept like a rock until about midnight when the South East wind stopped……..all together and the you know whats came back out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning (Saturday) we got up early again, I woke up about 5am to find Dave already had a rod out checking the condition of the weeds.  there were some but not too bad.  The sun rise was decent and the water looked good.  I got the grand idea of heating up my breakfast pop tarts up on the grill as i heated up the water for coffee.  What a great idea.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning started off slow, till around 8am and Dave has a heaver go off.  He gets on the rod and yells immediately to call the judge, this is big.  I grab my cell and call the judge, Matt and tell him where we are and that Dave just got hooked up and its big.  On my way he says.  I throw the phone down and run over and clear the other lines as he says he’s going for a walk.  Basically this means the fish is going either north or south and you are going to walk with it….  Dave tells me to grab the bag (a bag he keeps with a small sand spike, measuring tape, pliers, diagonal cutters, etc; stuff he uses for sharks and other big fish that take them walking).  snapping some pictures and video we are all thinking big shark, it feels like a big sand tiger Dave says, then it gets close and i see what i thought was a shark tail, but it was not, its different then a shark, color, shape, dorsal, face, mouth…….Dave and Jon both turn and start shouting its a drum, its a drum!  

With the Camera filming Dave gets the beast in to the wash and grabs the leader, Jon stands right next to him in case the line breaks he can grab the fish.  Dave drags the fish up onto dry land, “that is the biggest drum i have ever seen” i yell out.  Some other things were said but I can’t really put them on here .  We all knew this was a monster.  It measured out to 51 inches and was probably 60-65lbs.  I ran back to the truck to grab a VMRC tag and then run back to where they were on the beach.  They had just finished with the official measurement and photo, i stick a tag in it and then assist Dave getting the fish back in the water.  I sacrificed my some what dry sweat pants and take the fish out to thigh high water to give it enough to swim off.  After nursing it for a second or two it starts to kick and I release the giant red drum on its own power back in to the ocean.  I turn to Dave and shake his hand and tell him, congrats, you just took the lead.

The rest of the day was not as exciting as the morning was.  A few small pompano were caught, as well as some small blues, nothing else to measure in though.  In the afternoon, it got real foggy, then later showers moved through.  Most of the heavy rain missed us though, thankfully.  We again had another good sun set show with the clouds and colors and stuff.  The rain eventially stopped and it turned out to be a nice evening, even though the breeze wasn’t strong enough to keep the mosquitoes away.  We decided that since this was our last night on the beach we needed to fish hard and get a shark or big ray to take the trash fish division.  

Since we had lots of bait we were doing bait changes every 15-20 minutes, to keep the bait fresh.  As we watched the time tick by with no bites or hits we both realized how exhausted we were.  Jon eventually went to his truck to lay down for a few hours….we should have done the same, but we couldn’t do it.  The end of the tournament was getting closer and we wanted to give it our all.  about 4 am (i think) i start to doze off in my chair, eating a can of spagetti, so i decide i should lay down for a few.  climb into the back of my truck and hear Dave start yelling again, i look up and hes hooked up, call the judge and get the bag stuff.  The judges arrive, Bev and Terry, and Dave tells them this is a big ray or a big Sand Tiger and its going to be a long battle.  30 minutes into it the fish spits the hook and the battle ends almost as quickly as it begins.  We are all bummed about loosing the fish, not so much because it could have won us the trash division, but more so because we want to know what was on the end of the line.

The last two hours of the tournament came and went real quick.  i didn’t once sit down because i would have fallen asleep.  Once 6am hit and the tournament officially ended, i reeled in my heavers and planned to lay down for about an hour before we started to pick up camp.  The Judge Matt came by and told us that nothing else had been caught from out two categories so we won.  I took the striper category and Dave took the red drum category.  There was a shark caught the first night by another angler and it measured 66inches to take the trash fish category.

All in all it was a long, wet, exhausting weekend, but fun as hell and and I can’t wait to do it again.  Sorry this is long, hopefully you enjoyed it.  till next time……

Here are a few other pictures from the weekend:

SAT:

So for some strange reason the moons were aligned just the right amount and both Ian and Matty had off the SAME DAY.  In case you dont understand, this never, NEVER happens.  well it did.  and we hit the beach.  a bunch of us…..

Hit Back Bay NWR Saturday morning early.  So early that Ian was at the gate when i think i got out of bed….anyway.  First problem of the day, you could hear the surf when you got out of the truck.  big problem, because, i brought the kayak and an assortment of bait to target sharks.  well lets just say that didn’t happen.  SE Wind + SE Swell = Chest to Head high waves.  NOT really ideal for yaking baits out.  so we didn’t do it.  i did attempt it once in the afternoon but almost ate it so we decided it was not a good idea.  That was the second problem….

The water was dirty, and the beach was littered with reeds/grass/left over Irene debris.  we got nothing on the heavers, while some friends down the beach said they got a few small sharks.  We did catch lots of bluefish, baby black drum, a spot, and a spec – a baby spec.

Later that day, after we decided that yaking was not a good idea, i took a decent sized chunk of fat albert (false albacore – brought a 30 pounder for yaking bait), put it on heaver #2 and went to send it out.  now i have to say that it wasn’t an overly large chunk, with 8oz.  mid-cast all of a sudden, problem number 3 aroused, KA-POW! – heaver #2 just blew up, literally broke in half.  already frustrated, i throw the rod in my cart and walk over and go to sit down………………problem number….ok i lost count.  sit down in my chair and snap goes one of the legs.  i didn’t fall, just went down about 5 inches.  now keep in mind this chair has been around the block a few times and is 90% rust, so it was just a matter of time…….well it happened that day.

We ended up packing up before it got dark, there wasn’t much of anything going on and i needed to prepare for my trip on sunday.

SUN PM/MON AM:

Decided to make a last attempt at an AI shark/Early attempt at an AI drum this past weekend.  Hit the road about 3ish Sunday afternoon with Alex headed up to AI.  Jon and Dave were going to meet us out there.  Hit the ranger station, got my new pass, and then hit the beach.  Drove all the way down to the south end of the island – to the VA/MD line.  found all kinds of cool shells and a decent little place to fish.  Hang out by the truck waiting for Dave to get there.  He arrives, bait in cooler, and we get set up in hopes of screaming drags.

To make a long night a short story, Dave had the magic rod that night, he had one sand tiger on that we lost in the wash – line snapped.  then a few hours later he gets another screaming run, this time it feels like a big shark.  We take our time with this one and we get him into the wash and Jon wrestles the beast in – 8 foot 9 inch sand tiger.  Big Beast.  that was it for the rest of the night.  about 2am (i think) 8oz started to drift and the bite shut off.  all in all a fun night with good friends, even though the fishing was slow.  here are a few pics.

Till next time……………………………………..

~ A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where to begin……well fishing has been pretty good as of lately down on the beach.  Lots of bait, lots of blues, spots, croakers, rays, sharks, spanish…….now that i look back, the days are running together, and its hard to remember what happened on which day…lol.

Friday night about 530pm  I hit the beach with half the team, Jeremy and JJ.  Matty was meeting us down there when he got off work.  Went down with just one heaver and the metal rod.  Didn’t get anything on the heavers but pretty much caught bluefish up until it was dark.   Bluefish everywhere, didn’t matter where you cast, they were there.

Saturday Morning hit the beach with team mate Rob, Jeremy met us down there after he got off work.  First light was epic, from the time you could see enough to cast there was bluefish everywhere all the way up into 6 inches of water.  There ain’t nothing like standing in two feet of water with bait all around you.    If it wasn’t the bluefish destroying glass minnows and silver sides it was big pods of bunker making their way up the beach.  At one point the bunker was so thick you could not cast your line out with out snagging one.  Plenty of spot to be as well, pretty much all day.

Fished sun up to sun down with Jeremy, Rob had to leave shortly after lunch.  Never once had a hit on the heavers, although Rob had something little early in the day, but it got off.  The action was steady though, you were either catching bluefish or bunker all day.  Found a little hole and managed two short flounder in them as well on gulps.  Oh yes, I almost forgot.  I also caught a Star Gazer…which i have never seen before.  Now that i think about it, I caught me a surf slam on Saturday – Bluefish, Spot, Flounder, Star Gazer, Bunker  :)

 

 

Sunday – Since Saturday was so good I decided to do it again.  This time I had JJ with me, we got to BBNWR before the gates opened, once it did it wasn’t long before we were beach bound.  First think i notice when we get close enough to the surf to see the water is that there are bluefish busting everywhere.  I’m pretty sure this was the first time JJ had seen a blitz.  every cast was a bluefish until i got slammed by  a BIG spanish, who also took my sting silver and left me with nothing the rest of the day.  Oddly enough on today the blues disappeared before lunch and I never saw them again.  The Bunker on the other hand is another story…..Im pretty sure I have never seen that much Menhaden in the water as we did today.  they were huge, in close, out far, we tried live lining, on the bottom, free swimming….im thinking there was just so much food in the water they weren’t hungry.  instead of watching the bunker pods go by we began catching them, and I bagged them up tonight.  There was a few times…..nahh more like a bunch of times where the Dolphin were pushing the schools of bunker in and then crashing them…..the best part of all, most of the time it was 50 to 75 yards off the beach so we got a nice show.

Before Mr VCAN himself showed I launched a fresh bunker head out as far as I could.  Not too long after that I hear the unforgettable sound of drag peeling off a reel, look up and see my bunker head just got eaten!  Decent little fight and we get it too the beach and find that its a 3.5-4 foot Atlantic Sharpnose Shark.  Small but ill take it!  first pullage in two days for the beach!!  A short while later the same rod (different bait this time, three day old bunker head) goes off again, i come tight and offer it up to JJ since its been forever since he caught anything on a heaver.  He reels it in and we find another Sharpnose the same size as mine.   About an hour or so after that Mr VCAN gets bowed up with a 4-4.5ft Sharpnose himself.

JJ Ended up leaving about 4ish (i think) i stuck around for a bit but the clouds were starting to build so i got tired butt and 3 lightning rods (12ft heavers) off the beach.  Surf Slam for Sunday – Bluefish, Spot, Pompano, Sharpnose and the bunker

Im falling asleep as i write this, it was a long weekend but a fun one.  there was all kinds of life on the beach, lots of birds too which is also nice to see.  anyhow till next time……….

 

/AK\

 

 

 

SAT - Hit the beach about mid afternoon with Jeremy.  Wanted to catch the incoming and the evening bite.  Got set up next to another friend (Neil) and the Infamous B.A.  Heard the spot and bluefish bite was on in the AM but with it being low tide things had slowed down.  Put the bait rods out hoping to find something fresh, got a spot from the B.A. and went to town.  Afternoon was slow, wind was blowing out of the south pretty good.  At one point i look over and see Neil chasing something down the beach and run to assist, and land his little 4ft sand tiger.  quickly unhooked her and posed with her for a picture and showed the teeth to some kids and other bystanders then safely released her unharmed back into the deep blue.  ended up fishing till dark with Jeremy and that was the only excitement we saw.
SUN-Decided to hit the beach early, had been a while since i have seen the sun rise, even though it was mostly cloudy I still was able to have the sun say good morning just a little.  I set up my bait rod with fishbites bloodworms (only bait i like to use) and walk down to the waters edge, first thing i notice is the water is COLD.  it dropped like 10-15 degrees over night.  WTH i ask my self, must have been a west wind at some point…the wind wasn’t bad in the AM but slowly started to building throughout the day.
Jeremy met me down there after he got off working all night at 8am (im telling you, hes a soilder).  just before he gets there a Kayaker friend dumps about 15 or so ten inch bunker next to my cooler then he had just caught.  they were off to try some other place.  I was having any luck with the bait rod in close so i made a big bottom rig and tied it on one of my heavers and sent it flying as far as i could.  put the rod down in the sand spike and let it sit for a few minutes.  i thought i saw it bump a few times, but hard to to say it was breezy and that rod is more flexible then i like.  reeled it in to find 3 spot and two croaker on it.  NICE.  Bait is available.
anyhow to make a short story even longer, heavers went out with fresh bait.  i see mine tap once or twice and ignore it then Jeremy yells my name as i look up to see it go down.  grab the rod before it starts peeling drag and come tight on what feels like a big ray.  and it was.  big rough tail, im going to guesstimate 75-85lbs.  apply too much pressure and POP goes the shock leader, oh well, time to re-rig and get back out.
Jeremy has one hit but it drops the bait soon as it feels the tension of the rod.  Hally3 (see i told you im bad with names, dont remember already) was out in full force with her crew, she got her very own first (ill let her share the details and pictures)….and that is pretty much it for the rest of the outgoing.  Jeremy heads out just after lunch, he needed to get some rest before his work tonight.  About the time Hally3 was leaving they stopped to chat with me and the new ranger we hear one of my rods go off.  i run down the beach and come tight on yet another giant ray.  this one gets brought in a little further, im pretty sure it was a Rough Tail Ray, but i snap the line again, trying to leader it…………..
about an hour or so later im going through all my bait from the day to see what i have not tried and i find this little 5 inch puny roundhead.  i cut him in half, diagonally (im telling you its the cut) and grab a spot head and toss it out.  sitting there cleaning up some of my gear when i see the Round Head heaver get tapped, then again, then again, then slowly starts to go down.  i run over and grab it up and set the hook into what im hoping is not another ray.  the other end decides that its not happy with what i just drove home through its jaw and takes off, the fight is ON.
First thing i notice is head shake, then comes the tail slaps, this is not a ray.  i fight it for a bit and realize that i have a slight problem. im fishing alone and still have another rod out.  A couple come down the beach to see what i am battling against and about that time my second rod goes off, i ask for help and show the guy what to do as his wife asks me what i have, i tell her i think its a shark just as i see a massive tail and rear end of a sand tiger come out of the water.  this guy is BIG.  i start to follow down the beach and start to come up with a plan on how im going to land this thing.  i decide that since it is a sand tiger i will attempt to get it.  so there i find myself standing in three feet of water staring at a very large sand tiger, who by the end of the stale-mate is about 15 feet in front of me.
NOW i will take this time to say ive been in several feet of water with sharks before, but none this big,  not quite sure what is about to happen i start to time the waves as i try to get a few raps of my shock leader on, she comes up and surfaces for me and i get to see her, ALL of her.  Every bit of 8 feet.  Biggest shark i have ever hooked and biggest i have ever seen/heard about caught down there at back bay.  Just as i start talking to her she makes one fatal mistake, she makes a sharp 180 turn, head out of the water thrashing for me to see her smile (BIG TEETH), what this does is brings the leader and shock leader across her mouth, and with a head the size of a five gallon bucket, my 50lb shock leader is NO match for her giant razor sharp teeth.  SNAP goes the line and she swims away.  I find myself standing there in 3 feet of water with no eyes on the shark, hoping she swims toward shore by mistake, but glad to see she didn’t and safely swims away.
i thought to myself that is three break offs in one day.  im done.  i decide to re-rig and cast again and first cast, POP, there goes it all.  re-tie on another rig and manage to get one cast out.  then i see sky and hear thunder, and decide at my rate of bad luck today i should leave before i get struck my lightning!

so that was it.   what a day.