It all started one dreary day, last Saturday the 28th of July, when there was a question as to whether or not we should actually make the trip to the beach to try to fish, even though there was one huge line of thunderstorms moving up the Texas coast directly towards Freeport and Surfside. Throwing caution to the wind, the decision was made to go headlong into what promised to be a sloppy, wet fishing trip. We ended up bringing home 2 barely keeper blacktips, after finding out that they feed on hardhead catfish cut-bait, along with a couple good gafftops. All in all a great trip.
While consuming this shark and catfish, a call was placed to a well known member of the family, who resides in San Antonio. Upon being informed of the deliciousness of said shark, he/she (identity withheld to protect the innocent) informed us that he/she knew of some guys who, when fishing for big sharks, would use a technique, till this point unbeknownst to us, of hooking on a second fishing pole to the first pole and releasing the first pole as the line is stripped almost completely. This gives the fishermen a second and, if necessary, a third reel of line. We would like to extend a hearty THANK YOU to that special family member because without that info, this would be the end of the tale. We l**e you very much anonymous family member, God bless you!
Now.............the rest of the story.
Monday arrived and words of a second fishing trip swirled in the air. After a few moments of contemplation, schedules were rearranged and plans were changed to make time for a shark fishing trip on Tuesday, knowing full well that we might have to settle for bringing in some gafftops, red, or black drum as well. We were more than willing to deal with those issues, as they arose.
Tuesday morning alarms sounded and Jayden was more than ready to hit the surf with Ryan and I. As we exited Lake Jackson we stopped at the Whataburger, ordered our burgers and struck up a conversation with a gentleman sporting an old 'Rock 101' t-shirt. He asked where we were going to fish and we told him down at Surfside going after some shark. He was very informative and told us that we ought take beach access number ** or ** and drive down a few hundred yards to fish. We already intended to take the first one he mentioned, because that is where we caught the earlier fish. We decided to try the other access road he suggested and got down 2-3 hundred yards to park.
The morning fish started great with Jayden hauling in the first fish of the day, a 25 inch hammerhead shark, while Ryan was still rigging up the rest of the rods. "Man, was this a sign?", we thought. Throughout the day, it was gafftop and blacktip galore, with a few hardheads strewn in for bait's sake. 2:40pm arrived and all of us manned our stations. While I worked at baiting rods and Ryan was out casting one, I looked over at the farthest pole and it took a deep bow to the ocean. I quickly hollered at Jayden to come reel in the fish and we both charged through the knee deep water towards the pole. After I set the hook, I handed the pole to Jayden. She began pumping on the reel with reckless abandon and managed to bring in the behemoth 50 feet against his will. The muscles in her little arms and chest began to fill with excess amounts of lactic acid, and she relunctantly asked Daddy to take over. With flowing blonde locks of 3/8" hair and piercing blue eyes the fight shifted into 5th gear. As I fought to save precious yardage on the reel I managed to yell over to Ryan with the universal signal for 'big fish', which was my right arm extended as far to the right as possible, since my left arm was occupied with the reel. Being the adept and knowlegeable fisherman that he is Ryan, 100 yards away, quickly realized the extent of the situation and rushed, without concern for his safety, headlong towards me to serve as re-enforcement, armed with what ended up being a useless and unnecessary 3 ft landing net. As the fish repeatedly took yards of line at will, it became apparent that without our newly gained knowledge of the previously mentioned big shark fighting technique, this fight was soon going to be over. With precious feet to spare, Ryan raced back to the truck and assembled a, as of yet unproven, steel leader connection. Second pole in hand and rippling muscles abound, Ryan stormed back into the chest deep waters of the seaside surf, just in time to thread said connection through the base of my reel. Not long after this it became necessary to release my pole into the blue depths, not knowing if I would ever see it again. The pole shot through the water like a white torpedo. The fish, with a new sense of freedom, stripped many yards of line off of Ryan's reel. With a white knuckle grip on the pole, Ryan continued the fight the beast for nearly the next hour. He recovered my rod after much rod pumping and I licked my chops for another round against goliath. Within the next hour, we sighted what looked to us like a huge stingray wingflap 100 yards out. Our hearts sunk with disappointment as we began to discuss recipes for stingray scallops the size of truck tires, instead of big, thick shark steaks. With sweat dripping from our brows, we decided to continue and it was another half hour before another sighting 50 yards off revealed that we were indeed fighting a razor toothed man-eater. A clearly visible shark body strolling in the surf waves caused our hearts to again jump with joy. After quite a few more minutes of my heated battle, and much documentation by camera, Ryan sank his meat claws around the fencepost sized tail, and drug the now whooped monster ashore. Many high-fives and loud yelling ensued. When the hoopla subsided, the picture posing began and contined for another 10 minutes, at least. The carcass was then loaded aboard the truck, iced down and hauled 50 miles inland, where the real work began. After two hours of back breaking, fish cleaning labor, enough shark steak and gafftop fillets were bagged to be able to feed an entire Somali village for a week.
The trio of shark killers, sun baked, wind burned, and smelling like dead fish, finally got a chance to shower off and recuperate. When it was all said and done, Ryan and I talked about the next time we hook into some big SOB like that again. Cut the line and tell a bigger fish story than this, or bring the bastard in anyway? hmmmm, let us think. Enough thinking, he's freezer meat, damn the torpedoes.
It should be noted that a total of ten gafftop catfish, ranging in size from 15 to 24 inches, one hammerhead, and a (UPDATE: 1 blacktip shark, and 1 Bull Shark) were brought home. The blacktip was a mere 2 foot long. We only failed to mention it up to this point because, you know, we catch em every trip we go after em, hehe. Oh, and if you hadn't figured it out yet, the unidentified family member was Thad. Thanks, brotha.
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