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16

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / 4/26/18 SD Surf Report

« on: April 27, 2018, 10:37:34 AM »

With the 8pm high tide on Thursday Mike and I knew that we would needed to get on the sand sooner then our normal hours of operation. Unfortunately, Mike had family obligations so he couldn't get on the sand until 9pm. Luckly I was able to get thing done early at home and had lines in the water by 6pm. The conditions were pretty good, small 1-3 feet waves with not much salad to speak of in the water.

A little overcast but not too cold.

After about an hour of soaking a few baits with nothing but critter bites, I notice that my rod does a small bounce like I've got a bug on the line. I pick up the rod and I feel a couple more  small tugs on the line. I set the drag and do a quick hook set and then the lines peels off and I can see tail slaps on the surface where my line disappears into the water. It's seldom that I get to fish during daylight, so it was a treat to see the take down. After a short run the hook gets unbuttoned and I'm bummed I couldn't seal the deal for a day light grinner. 

A couple of hours goes by with not much action. Around 9pm the tide has already switched to outgoing and Mike finally makes an appearance with his new de-hooker that he made. As we are talking about his recent graveyard shark session this week my line does a small dip and bounce. I pick up the rod and set the drag again and do a quick hook set. I feel weight on the line and the fish takes off and does a tail slap that Mike saw. It does a few head shakes and runs north about 30 yards. I tighten the drag and get the fish to turn back toward me and I slowly make progress on the fish. When we get it into the surf we see it's a male 7gill with some attitude. Every time Mike goes for a tail grab it does a 180 degree turn and tries to bite it's tail. Mike is excited to get to use his new de-hooker and it works like a charm on the first attempt. The shark measures out to be 81" long and pretty thick.

Caught on center cut Mac.

We stayed until 11pm but that was all she wrote. Getting closer to breaking into the 20's 

17

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Bat Fight Night Grinner 3/31/18

« on: April 01, 2018, 09:27:52 AM »

So it's Bat Fight night and Mike has been hyping up how much time on the sand he will be having today. I'm a little jealous since I have some obligations that I have to take care of before I can wet a line. I get to the sand around 6:30pm to find minimal surf and weedless conditions.  I setup two rods north of Mike and Andre who have been fishing since 2pm. I hear that they both have landed a few bat rays, which is weird since we haven't seen many bat rays caught all year.  (Mike said the big bat he caught was the toughest fish he has ever fought. I will let him tell that story)

I put mac on one rod and squid on the other. About an hour into the soak I see Mike's rod go bendo and he is fighting what he thought was a 7gill, but it turns out to be a medium size surf bat. As I watch Mike bring this fish ashore I see my squid rod go bendo too. I get to it and tighten up the drag and wind down. I can fill it's a shark but it's fighting weird, after a couple of minutes I get it into the white water. As Andre helps tail grab this leo it turns and bites his jacket, this little guy was not a happy camper. I then realize why this fish was fighting weird, because I foul hooked it in caudal fin.


About 30 minutes later, I see my Mac rod do a little dip and I pick it up to see if anything was on. As I wind down to take out the slack I feel pressure on the other end. This fish takes off and I feel a nice initial run and head shakes. The shark starts charging the sand and I tell Mike that I think it's a leo, but then I see some tail slaps on the surface. As I get her into the surf I can see it's a 7gill. Mike does a quick tail grab and tape and she measures out to be 72" long.


About a half an hour later Andre gets a 60" 7gill too. I'll let him tell how it fought.
I packed it up at 11pm sad to not have contributed anything to the SD Bat crew total, but I did get one fish closer to Mike and pass up WMB on the leaderboard! SiXTEEN! 

Rest up guys, and let's get ready for the Grinner Gathering!

18

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / 11/29/18 Report

« on: March 30, 2018, 05:35:49 PM »

Mike and I fished our usual Thursday night session yesterday. I got to the spot by 7:30pm to find Andre and Ben were already set up and putting some fish on the sand. I see Andre bringing in a little bat ray as I plant my sand spike. Ben was helping him out when I see Ben run over to his rod 70 yards south to set the hook on a decent size leo. After talking to Ben a bit he said that he missed a nice take down due to operator error. 

 I'm setting the first rod up and get a nice cast for once. As I'm setting up the second rod, the first rod gets a nice knock down and it's pulling line off the reel. I run and set down the second rod and pick up the first to find that the fish is off.  The bait is gone and my hook tip is broken. 

I put out the second rod and start tying a new rig to the first rod when the second rod starts screaming. My line goes north and crosses Andre's line. I'm walking north to catch up to this fish, but some how Andre's lines is tangled around my feet. I lose tension with this fish and thought it had busted me off when I realize it's just my line is crossed with Andre's. We get our lines untangled and Andre tries to grab the fish but it twists out of his hands like three times. I can't really grab this fish because my feet are tangled in Andre's line. Finally, Andre is able to wrestle the shark ashore and help untangle me from his line. How I landed this shark with all mishaps is a miracle. I didn't want to keep this shark out of the water too long so I didn't get a tape on her, but I would safely say it was a least 60" long. (Female)


60" Female (Mac-bait) incoming tide.

I made sure she didn't wash back ashore this time. 

As I'm re-tying my rig I see Ben hooked up with something, from the way his rod was bent it looked like he was stuck on a reef or something, but then I see a splash and I see that he has a fish on. By the time I get over to him, Ben has the soup fin close to shore. I grab the tail and pull it on the sand. I can see it's a thick female. I'll let Ben tell how the fish fought, but it didn't run like a soup fin. Ben has the pictures of his fish, so I'll let him post those pics.

Ben's fish was gut hooked and I didn't have pliers long enough to reach, but thank goodness Andre had a dehooker that was long enough to get to the hook. I leave Ben to revive the fish and put her back in the surf, but he tells me 5 minutes later that he can't get her to swim off. Ben decided to keep this fish and goes to work on cleaning it.

Mike finally shows up and sets up north of me, by this time the tide is dropping pretty fast and the bite shuts down. Mike gets a nice knock down but doesn't connect. We call it a 11pm since the tide was dropping so fast and there was no more action.

One closer to Mike and tied with WMB! (15)

19

Fishing Talk / Shark Jaw Mounting Project

« on: March 18, 2018, 02:48:12 PM »

After the accidental demise of a Soup Fin shark last week, I decided to take the jaws to mount them on a plaque. Here is a picture of the jaws after I removed it from the shark's head.



After about an hour of using a filet knife and pliers I had this:



I placed the jaws in a large zip lock bag containing a 1:3 Hydrogen Peroxide/Water solution. The jaw and remaining flesh started turning white.

After letting the Shark Jaws soak for 2 days in the Hydrogen Peroxide/ Water solution I removed the jaws to find a very white soft set of jaws.


As you can see from the photo above there was still a good amount of flesh and cartilage on the jaw bones. By soaking them in the solution for 2days it made it easier to remove the remaining flesh. I used a razor blade and tweezers to remove as much soft tissue as I could and then I mounted it on board to dry. The instructions that I found online said to salt the jaws to help with the drying process, so I gave the jaws a nice dusting of table salt while I let it dry out.



There is still small bits of tissue on the jaws but I'm hoping that once everything dries out that I can sand off any of the remaining tissue.

So after three days of drying and a little sanding with some 320 grit sand paper I have these set of jaws.


As you can see they look white and smooth. I put some clear varnish on the jaws to maintain the white color and to make them a little shiny. I'm working on a wooden plaque next.

So here is the wooden plaque I made for the jaws, it's white pine that I will put a dark stain on.


After a couple of coats of stain and clear varnish this is the final outcome of the plaque.


 

20

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Tuesday Night Pre-Storm Session

« on: March 14, 2018, 11:33:14 AM »

After hearing about the multi-shark sessions as of late and the forecast of storms later this week I decided to get in a surf fishing session in.
As I'm gearing up for the trip I can see it's starting to rain at my house. It was a light rain, more of a heavy mist then a down pour, so I decide to bring a rain poncho and go for it. When I get to the spot it's stopped misting, so things are looking up. I setup and have a bait in the water by 8pm. About 15 minutes later Rasta shows up and sets up north of me. The surf conditions are decent, not much surge and minimal salad. Rasta gets a nice take down and he screams that he's on. He makes short work of a juvenile 7gill (68") with not much effort. Tom shows up out of the darkness to take a look see. 


As I am sand handing the 7gill for Rasta my reel goes off. This fish takes about half of my line in no time. I lock down the drag and hope it doesn't spool my little reel. (25lb main line.  ) After about 5 minutes the shark starts to come in and I make steady progress getting line back. When the shark get close we can see it's a thick Soupie. We get a tape and pic of this shark and it measure out at 64" female.


I made sure water flows across her gills for a few minutes and she swims off on the next incoming tide. Pinoyfisher shows up in the middle of the mayhem and setup north of Rasta. He's getting critter bites and lands a sandbass, but I didn't get to see it. About 30 minutes go by and Pinoyfisher is tired of getting all of the critters, so he relocates south of me. To our dismay he discovers the soupie that I had caught earlier had beached herself. It was clear that she had been out of the water for a while and we couldn't revive her. So we decided to harvest her. In the process of gutting the fish we discovered she was carrying about 20 fry that still had their yoke sac attached. (I would guess they needed another two weeks to reach full development) We put the fry into the surf to give them a chance to make it, but they probably became dinner to some bass or hali. 

Nothing was wasted and I even kept the jaws to make into a cool plaque that we could use for our 2018 shark contest. Anyone know how to best remove all the flesh off the jaw bones?

Bitter sweet night for sure.   

21

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / First Shark of 2018!

« on: March 02, 2018, 07:51:44 AM »

It took three months, but the skunk streak is broken. After many trips it took a break in the weather, the start of a grunion run and a good sand hand to get my first shark of 2018. Mike and I did our usual Thursday night fishing and we arrived to find weedless conditions and no surf at all. The weather was a bit chilly, but I was OK with it. The critters were out again for me, but Mike seem to have stayed clear of them. I moved a little south to get away from the critters. I got a nice long cast which is rare for me.  Not more then a 3 minute soak, I got two long pull downs. As I got to my rod I set the hook and it felt good to feel some weight on the end of the line again. The shark took some long slow runs north and Mike saw it do a tail slap on the surface. As we pulled it out of the white water we could see it was a juvenile male 7gill shark.


It measured out to be 65" long caught with a chunk of Mac at high tide.
Mike had a couple of legit shark hits too, but the hook pulled twice. Hopefully, the sharks will be showing up more consistently as spring arrives. Too bad rain is forecasted for this weekend otherwise we would have hit the surf again during this grunion run.

Thanks for reading.

22

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Sunday Night Fishing 2/18/18

« on: February 19, 2018, 10:47:17 AM »

Since I had Monday off and the tides where right, I thought I would get a surf fishing session in. Mikey was feeling under the weather so it was a solo session for me. I get to the spot by 7:30pm and the high was scheduled for 11:30ish. As soon as my first bait hits the water I get critter bites right away. It was bugs for sure, some of the bites had me thinking shark a couple of times. Within 5-10 minutes my baits would look like this.

This is a hollowed out mac head after a ten minute soak.

I decided to move 30 yards south of the critters which helped a little bit, my baits seemed to last 20 minutes before getting picked clean. It started sprinkling around 10pm, but as long as there wasn't lightning I was going to fish until I ran out of bait. I get a nice pull down that pulled some drag, but as soon as I set the hook it felt light. I reel in this bait thief to get a little redemption.

I would guess he was about 16" in length. He went back to catch another day.

On my last bait I get a little pull down, but it turned out to be this medium size guitar fish


So, things are starting to look up for my catch ratio for 2018. Hopefully, I can get something to post on the shark board soon. Mikey be scared, be very scared. 

23

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / First fish of 2018!

« on: February 18, 2018, 12:09:18 PM »

I got an invitation by Ben to fish with him and his buddies from out of town. We went to the spot that is know to hold bone fish. I wanted to get the bone fish off my bucket list and break by 2018 skunk streak. We got to the spot by 7am for the incoming tide. I was a little concerned to see a big dredger in the canal when I arrived. The water was a little more murky then usual, but we seemed to be far enough away from the dredger that it didn't shut down the bite. It seemed that all I was getting were yellow fin croaker and small spotties while Ben and his buddies where hooking up with bone fish right next to me. 

I had a small window to fish, but right before I had to go I got the right kind.  (That's Ben photo bombing my trophy shot)


I was using a light trout rod which made the fight fun, the bone fish made a couple of nice runs when I got him near shore.

Now on to the big boys in the surf. 

24

Contest & Events / New 2018 Contest

« on: February 08, 2018, 12:29:22 PM »

Hey, lets start a new 2018 contest. I don't have any preference, but I need some motivation to get off my coach right now. The cold weather and lack of bites is getting me down. Maybe biggest species. (aka: Biggest Leo, Biggest Batray etc.) The prize isn't that big a deal to me, maybe a badge that we could put on our profile?

What are your thoughts?

25

Fishing Talk / What the heck?

« on: February 08, 2018, 12:19:38 PM »

It's February and I still don't have a fish yet? I've gone out two or three times in January and I've been skunked each time. Things better change soon, or I'm going to have to use some WMD on these fish. 

26

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / 12/14/17 Salad Report

« on: December 15, 2017, 07:43:29 AM »

I fished the incoming tide from 6-8pm yesterday at the grinner gather location. The conditions were very similar to the what we had this year at gathering. I left after 30 minutes and tried a location further south and the conditions were identical. Packed it in at 8pm. 

27

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Monday Night Shift (11/20/17)

« on: November 21, 2017, 07:44:17 PM »

I had a small window to fish on Monday night, so I hit a location I haven't fished in a while. I arrive at the location at 8pm and the high wasn't until close to 11pm, so I had a few hours of prime fishing time. The conditions were nice, no salad and 1-2 feet waves. I forget how nice it is to fish without having to clean off salad from my line every 5 minutes. 

Mike shows up an hour after me, so he sets up to the south of me for once. On my second bait out I am noticing my sand spike is getting hit by water. I go and reset my sand spike further up the beach. As I am holding the rod and moving the sand spike up the beach I get a tug on the line. My first thought was kelp stringer was tugging on the line. I put down the sand spike and tighten up the drag to pull in my line. The line takes off like a fish and I set the hook on this fish. As I start working this fish to shore I can tell it's not a monster, but it was nice to fight a fish again. As the shark gets close Mike and I see it's a juvenile 7gill. As the shark is in the white water the hook pops off, but my trusty sand hand grabs her by the tail before she can take off in the outgoing tide. Good sand hands are priceless. 

Here are some photos from my photographer.




Stats: 64" Female 7gill
Conditions: Incoming Tide 1-2 feet waves
Bait: Mac

I'm only single digits behind Mike now on the shark list. Be scared Mike..be very scared. 

28

Fishing Talk / How often do you check your phone during a typical fishing session?

« on: November 03, 2017, 12:51:20 PM »

I would like to see how common people are using their device during a fishing session. I know there are a lot of variables to take into consideration, but it's just casual poll.

29

Fishing Talk / Picture Test

« on: July 03, 2017, 09:26:15 PM »

Can you see this picture? If so, photo bucket works.

30

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / 5/17/17 Surf Report

« on: May 18, 2017, 04:53:31 PM »

Wednesday is not my usual fishing day of the week, but Mike said he couldn't fish on Thursday so we laid plans to hit the surf last night. I get to the A.O. around 8pm to find minimal salad. I was expecting much more since Mike and Tom had reported a salad feast a couple of days earlier. I just got a new set of 7oz sputniks from Klammer and I wanted to see if the extra once makes a difference on the casting distance. My first cast with the 7oz weights does sail further then the normal 6oz weights that I use. I put my rod into the holder and I can see I am getting some interest right away. I'm fishing next to some structure, so I'm kinda worried that the rig or fish will hang me up. I get a nice hit within 10 minutes of tossing out my first bait out there. I wait to see if it's a critter or the right kind. I feel nothing, so I reel in the rig to find my Mac completely bit in half. (I was using a whole small Mac) Mike think it was either a shark or eel. I cast my new bait out again and wait another 10 minutes before I get the 7gill type bite. I set the hook and a couple of good head shakes, so I know it's the right kind. It goes straight toward the structure I was hoping to avoid. A minute later my line snaps, I reel in the line to fine a clean break. My guess was that it broke when the line was nicked by the reef.

I move 20 yards from the reef to give me a little room. Around 10pm I get the right kind to come back again. This time I was rewarded with a juvenile male 7gill (70").





Mike catches a couple of critters too, but that was it for me last night.

Good luck out there guys.