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Florida Oct 31 thru Nov 2 2008-Weekend Trip


Power Fisherman

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This report was written by LASharkhunter....Enjoy!

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Politically Incorrect Innocence Disclosure....

I am from Texas in the US. Been Friends with Terry H, the Harmons, and other Australian Sharkers for a while.

Some of our techniques are different and some of our customs, laws, and species densities are different than Australia.

Not looking for critique, just looking to share with the fine people of Australia. Hope you enjoy our reports. Please respect that we have many more similaries than differences.

Deaver

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Our trip started on Friday Oct 31 2008. I left my house around 12:30 and picked Travis up from school about 2:30, went to his place and packed up his things, and hit the road around 3:30. We had a long drive that evening. We got caught in some serious traffic and lost a couple of hours. We finally reached our fishing destination around 10:30pm!! Well we were excited to be there and went straight to the beach to set up camp. First thing we noticed---The WIND blowing out of the East hard and Cold!! Second thing we noticed---The HUGE waves!!! Third thing we noticed---the beach was half the size it use to be!! Guess the last hurricane really took a toll on this section of beach. We decided to do some recon of the beach and drove around for about an hour looking for a fishable spot. We finally find and area we felt half way comfortable to put casted baits out. We sit on the casted baits for several hours with no bites. The cold and fatigue set in and we call it a night, reel in the untouched baits and head for the truck. We drive back to a parking area along the beach and pull over and get some much needed rest. We awaken at dawn shivering in the truck to a 40degree morning. Neither of us was motivated to get out of the truck until we noticed the calm surf and how luck would have us placed in a spot that was only 20 yards from the water!!! The conditions had changed for the better. We put two casted rods out and began preparing the yak rods. By 9:00am we had 4 yaked baits, 2 casted baits and two bait rods in the water. It was still cold but warming up fast. I left Travis in charge of the reels and headed to the store for some hot breakfast and 2 big cups of Hot Chocolate!!! After enjoying the morning meal and talking with a nice retired couple for a while we began respooling the Penn 80 and 12/0 with new line in preparation to run with a large bait--if we could get lucky enough to catch one. Around 12:30 it had warmed up greatly and we were feeling good about the weather but were starting to second guess our fishing location. We had not turned a click--heck we couldn't even give a shrimp away on the bait rods. Just as we were discussing the "dead sea" a large school of fish erupts on the sandbar! Travis takes off in the yak to go beyond the breakers to catch what ever it is. He gets hooked up several times but never lands the fish. After a solid hour he comes back frustrated and explains the type of fish and their behavior. Bonito!! So off I go for my turn. FINALLY when i was about to give up I hook one and have a blast getting pulled around by the fish. When I finally get the 3lb bonito in the boat I paddle as fast as I can to beach!! Now we are rejuvinated and excited. We grab the penn 80 and get the bonito about 250 yards out! We hope this changes our luck! Then we put the penn 12/0 about 500yards out with a nice stingray. We settle back down in the beach chairs and talk about the last couple of hours. Travis saw a HUGE turtle and schools of bonito, I saw big school of cownose rays and schools of bonito. We were feeling sure the bite would start. Towards the end of this conversation the Penn 80 takes a couple of clicks and slacks up. I jump up-- fish on. It was an interesting battle with all the lines in the water but we landed a nice blacktip and now we felt we had made the right decision. We rebaited the Penn 80 and dropped it back out about 250yds then rebaited the Penn 50 and dropped it out about 125yds. After this I went to change into some warm dry clothes as the sun was dropping and the evening was getting cool. While I was changing clothes I hear some kid yelling Dad! Dad!!! DAD!!!!! I thought thats not Travis thats the other kids on the beach. I took my time. When I come out of the bathroom I see Travis with the 12/0 FISH ON!! :shock: :D I was so happy for him. He told me how it was a very slow click, click, click then while he was putting on the belt it was just steady ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. The battle ensued and after about 20 or so minutes Travis lands his first shark on the 12/0 and his biggest bull shark yet!! It was so fat and healthy it put up a great fight and swam away fine. We were so pumped now we didn't even feel the cold!! Travis rebaited the 12/0 and set it back out about 500 yds. The next several hours is to hard to put into words. It was unbelievable. Hit after Hit. Good Hard FIGHTS! On short dropped baits. Finally the cold, fatigue, the growing surf(which threw me for one good toss and possibly caused a broken foot!! I will know after todays doctor visit), and lack of bait made us slow down. It was decided to leave the 12/0 and the penn 80 out. We took the rods and set them up in the back of the truck :D :wink: . Got in the truck, turned the heater on and ate the best sandwhich I think I ever had :lol: After our bellies were full we settled in for some much needed rest. Well, that didn't last all that long because close to midnight the Penn 80 goes of. It Travis turn and before I knew it he is in the harness and fighting his first shark on the Penn 80. This was a nice battle and again Travis largest bull shark yet!! It measured close to the same as the others but was obviously the thickest of all the sharks we caught that night. The rest of the night was very quiet with no more action. At daylight we reeled in the 12/0 with the bait being untouched. :?

It has been many years since I have seen this many good sharks in one night. We payed our dues fishing in the cold and wind for nearly 16hours before getting the first bite but the next 6hours were unbelievable!!! We will always remember this special night!!

A beautiful sunrise

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20 yards to the surf

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5ft 6in Black Tip landed Nov 1 at 4:55pm

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Travis in Battle with 12/0

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6ft 1in Bull Shark landed Nov 1 at 6:13pm

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6ft 0in Bull Shark landed Nov 1 at 6:58pm

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Travis in Battle with Penn 50

6ft 1in Bull Shark landed Nov 1 at 8:17pm

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6ft 2in Bull Shark landed Nov 1 at 9:28pm

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6ft 3in Bull Shark landed Nov 2 at 12:10am

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Angus, Feral,...

Glad you enjoyed the report. We have had quite a bit of growth in the last year, including launching a site in the state of South Carolina where the world record IGFA tiger shark was landed by Walter Maxwell on June 14th, 1964.

Our season is about to start and hopefully I can help with reports when your water is colder, and ours is warm.

Deaver

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Hahaha mate looking forward to them!

So the record has been held since 1964? Thats impressive.

Simon what are you doing? I thought youd have this pipped :P

Looking forward to some Texas sharking action during our cold months mate.

Angus

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Simon Harmon has the largest shark landed from shore for the 21st century that we know of. The 13ft 6in tiger shark landed in 2004 has not been surpased world wide.

Lot of other Australians catch some really big fish too. Terry is starting to develope quite a name.

I saw a photo of another fine man that landed a hammer going over 12 feet. Don't know if he wants his name disclosed so I will keep that quiet out of respect.

Deaver

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Power Fisherman wrote:

Simon Harmon has the largest shark landed from shore for the 21st century that we know of. The 13ft 6in tiger shark landed in 2004 has not been surpased world wide.

Lot of other Australians catch some really big fish too. Terry is starting to develope quite a name.

I saw a photo of another fine man that landed a hammer going over 12 feet. Don't know if he wants his name disclosed so I will keep that quiet out of respect.

Deaver

Yeah I was pretty sure that Tiger was in the books. Awesome looking fish.

It will be interesting to see what the new laws regarding sharks does to the local sharking population...

Angus

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Here is Dogs Report.....

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Politically Incorrect Innocence Disclosure....

I am from Texas in the US. Been Friends with Terry H, the Harmons, and other Australian Sharkers for a while.

Some of our techniques are different and some of our customs, laws, and species densities are different than Australia.

Not looking for critique, just looking to share with the fine people of Australia. Hope you enjoy our reports. Please respect that we have many more similaries than differences.

Deaver

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Well it was an upside down week for me - this was meant to be our last sharking weekend of 2009 with a trip to Florida to meet SSC but with home and work commitments a sharking trip just turned out not to be possible. I kept my eye on the moon, tides and weather and after last weeks 12 drum trip...I knew that Surfside jetty should again produce and if not produce even better.

The trip was off to a great start before loading the truck as there was a lot of interest from TSF members and this included Deaver coming through to get in on the action and show his commitment and support to the upper coast faction of TSF..... his journey was to be rewarded and rewarded with an upper coast BANG !!!

On checking the tides the jetty action would have been slow throughout the morning and early afternoon so myself Deaver and Sportsman decide to hit Galveston side of SLP early Friday morning to possibly see if there was any bait fish and just get ourselves lumberred up for the jetty later in he day. We arrived out to what was an incrediblly low tide and conditions were gorgeous..beautiful sunshine and flat calm surf. Sportsman quickly got some crab and mullet out (hmm, I thought we were bait fishing)...I put out some fish bites but soon followed with crab on my my big rods.

With baits soaking Deaver got to demonstrating the distance casting he has been practicing .... mighty fine impressive casts in the regsion of 150 to 170 yards. Lets not talk about my birds nest...lets just say I had to go and buy Deaver a knew spool of 20 lb mono. As for the fishing, Shannon and myself made a very limp effort at working the drop off for flounder when out of the blue one of my surf rods bent in half. What a great satrt to the day - looking for bait and we hooked into what turned out to be my biggest BIG UGLY yet. The fish went 43 inches and weighed in the region of 40 - 45 lbs.

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Sharkerstalkerkyle was soon on the phone and soon on the road. We enjoyed the rest of the beautiful morning and just after noon got back on the road and headed towards the jetty. After picking up essentials, we got out on the rocks somewhere around 2pm. Conditions were beautiful so we headed out to near the end. From here the report gets blurry....lets just put it this way...FISH, FISH and more FISH. Over the next few hours Sharkstalkerkyle arrived, Breiger, Robosharker, SharkinnAggie, Cheater, Elite13 and RedRyder.

I will let the photos do the talking. Saturday ended with 15 fish. 10 bull reds and 5 black drum. Highlights of the day was the huge big ugly I got but best was a double hookup for Breiger on 2 reds...always nice getting a photo with a bull red in each hand.

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The bite died off pretty much as predicted and after a great day on the rocks we all wrapped it up and headed out aroound 10 pm.

Saturday 13th

When I arrived home with Deaver on Friday night, I checked tides and weather...with 20-25 mile per hour winds forecast the jetty was going to be a different place on Saturday...but the tides and moon phase still told me we would be rewarded if we go out again. I decided we could make a short trip in the most productive period and see how we could get on, so sometime after lunch myself and Deaver hit the road again. First stop was to get some some crabs and then get out to the rocks. We got held up in traffic so missed about 1 hours of the bite that I would have liked to see..but we did manage it out there for around 3pm. The conditions were pretty crazy - end of the jetty was unfishable so we stayed back a few hundred yards where wave action was a little less. The wind and moon phase had pushed the water all the way up the rocks... this was going to be some really cool jetty fishing.

Did not take long to get into some steady action. We fished for 4 hours and put the total fish tally for the weekend to 21. Between myself and Deaver we got 5 big uglies and 1 bull red. The bull red was a nice sized 42 inch. I pulled up another hoss of a black drum that went 43 inches and Deaver pulled one in at 38" that was a very big fish.

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Hurricane Ike threw a spanner in the works for winter fishing on the upper Texas coast...but as I have said before STAY AT HOME = NO FISH. Having landed 33 drum in 2 weekends....I think it is easy to say THE BITE IS ON AT SURFSIDE JETTY.

Thanks for everybody coming out. The trips can be hard out there and the jettys can eat tackle. Be sure to hit me up with any questions I can answer. There is lots of information in this report to help guide you to figure out how to spend your time on the jetty. I dont want to spell it right out there...getting out there is best way to learn and is more valuable than just being told. I will be happy to take anybody from TSF out to the jetty and try and get you into the drum.

Oh, by the way - the photos are nothing compared to the HD video coverage Deaver took of the entire weekend. This will come soon.

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