# Surfside Weed Report



## surfguy (May 17, 2011)

I'm not concerned about the rough surf forecast this weekend but I was wondering if anybody has been to Surfside around SLP in the last day or so and has a weed report? I'm mainly interested to know if there is any fresh weed in the water. Last I saw two weeks ago it was unfishable west of SLP but there were spots east of SLP that were fishable but spotty. Anybody got a weed report?


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## Mustad7731 (May 23, 2004)

I was there...Entrance #5 Yesterday...The weed was at least 1' deep at the 
Beach/Water interface...The weed was thick in the wade gut, probably thru the
2nd bar....I didn't even put a rod in the water...Thunderstorms were intermittant!
It was a close as I've ever come to a complete waste of a trip....
Except for family time...
Mustad7731
Jack


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## wish2fish (Mar 1, 2005)

I don't think the weed is going to go away. It has no where to go. It is stacked up so high on the waters edge that it can't get on the beach any longer. I think it is just getting washed right back out during high/low tide. So my question is, do they bulldoze the weed at some point. I understand not doing it too early but this is effecting tourism and it is at a point where it should be pushed up to the dunes. It will be great for rebuilding them.


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## surfguy (May 17, 2011)

Mustad7731 said:


> I was there...Entrance #5 Yesterday...The weed was at least 1' deep at the
> Beach/Water interface...The weed was thick in the wade gut, probably thru the
> 2nd bar....I didn't even put a rod in the water...Thunderstorms were intermittant!
> It was a close as I've ever come to a complete waste of a trip....
> ...


Thanks for the reply. That's what I expected to hear about the west side. Did you happen to look at the east side of SLP?


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## Yellow.mouth (May 10, 2013)

East side was the same last week, they are trying to clean it in a few areas between jamaica beach and the pass, but its not lasting long because of the tides recycling it back in from other areas. Ill be staying in surfside mid july, so hoping its clearing some by then!


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## surfguy (May 17, 2011)

Yellow.mouth said:


> East side was the same last week, they are trying to clean it in a few areas between jamaica beach and the pass, but its not lasting long because of the tides recycling it back in from other areas. Ill be staying in surfside mid july, so hoping its clearing some by then!


 OK, thanks!


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## troutless (Feb 17, 2006)

Surfguy, Did you go on down today? I sure wanted to but its a 270- 300 mile trip for me, and looks to bad to me. The last two trips down were a washout for me.


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## Blueshoes (Jan 24, 2013)

i live about 30 seconds away from the west end of seawall here in galveston, from what ive seen most of the beaches are easily a few feet deep with sargassum, if you were going to do the surf i would maybe suggest in a town, I.E Jamacia beach, maybe they clean up the sargassum like galveston does around the touristy areas but from what ive seen its showing no sign of letting up...

however... it is extremely rough right now and swellinfo is calling for it to be flat here in a few days, curious to see if this rough water has bunched up all the sargassum near shore and put it on the beaches leaving clean water behind it.... we will see!


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## surfguy (May 17, 2011)

troutless said:


> Surfguy, Did you go on down today? I sure wanted to but its a 270- 300 mile trip for me, and looks to bad to me. The last two trips down were a washout for me.


Yes, I went down late Fri night. Did not take any shark gear, just casted rods. The open surf on either side of SLP was unfishable as I expected. I settled on a spot on the east side of the pass where the weed was less stacked up but still pretty bad. I threw a couple lines out with 2-4oz spider weights that held about 15min and then spent the next 30min cleaning massive weed balls off my leader when they broke loose. Enough of that, so I started free-lining fishbites, shrimp, live croaker, live mullet, cut mullet, and cut whiting to see if anything would bite. Free-lining is the only way to reduce the amount of weed from gathering on your line but there's always a small weed ball on the leader when you bring it in. It's better than cleaning 100lbs of weed off every line. LOL. 
Anyway, I got a few HH's and was surprised to get a couple puppy drum on the shrimp this late into the summer season. They went into the freezer for shark bait. No whiting believe it or not. The live croaker and mullet yielded a couple undersize specs that got thrown back. A fresh set of weed came in with the tide on Sat and stacked it up again. Threw a couple whiting heads out on the big casted rods with 20/0 circle hooks that came back in half bitten off, probably by small sharks. Another fresh set of weed came in late Sat night that pretty much shut me down. 
The fresh weed continues to come in from offshore, so it's gonna be awhile longer before normal surf fishing or shark fishing can be done at Surfside.


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## pickn'fish (Jun 1, 2004)

Thanks for the weed report. Yep, Tx A&M site says more on way. Matty may get it worse...
Weed is troublesome but I have caught fish when it didn't look very possible. Even on a topwater once boxed 4specks in first gut. Weed was thick but mullet were there and trout ate it as soon as it hit the water. Usually, I will try to fish clear pockets as close as possible to sargassum.
But, it might be worth a try even when you don't think so... Small plugs and weightless or small jighead plastics are worth a try in weed as well.


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## BeelinerGuy (Mar 25, 2010)

Attempted to throw some lures then flies in the surf today in Galveston but caught weeds every cast. Was pretty nasty on the beach too. Hopefully this clears up soon. I may give up football this September to finally get some good fishing in.


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## Surf Rodder (Jun 28, 2013)

*SLP: "Bad WEEDS, bad WEEDS, whatcha gonna do?????"*

Man, never seen such rotten fishing conditions as we encountered Friday; Surfside side of SLP. But my buddy Joe has a great story.

Given the incredible inflow of current and seaweed, 10oz. spider weights weren't holding anything. I walked close to 180 yards to recover the first two rigs I threw out. The water was so off-colored (Yahoo or Ovaltine-colored, take your pick) that we both got nailed by every other large mullet that was streaming by us. We couldn't see our toenails ankle deep. Man, if I had been alone I'd have turned right around and headed home, but I wanted my bro from Missouri to rip some lips on a large rod, so we stuck it out a while.

I'm sitting on the shore when Joe drags back on shore, plucking seaweed. He asks me to rig him with a float so he can walk with the current and maybe avoid so much seaweed. I couldn't help but be impressed with his resolve, so I did just that. I had a large pre-rigged Tarpon rig I made years ago. It had a large Styrofoam ball with 5' of 120 lb. pound leader below it attached to a sizeable hook. I hooked a 10" mullet onto it and watched him labor across the seaweed and back into the water. We were maybe 80 yards inside the causeway on the Surfside side. The current was ripping IN all day long. ZERO BEACH!

After a few minutes I quit watching him, dreaming of a cool shower and some sliced watermelon. Some 10 minutes later he's walking in and staring straight it me. I thought he'd seen a ghost! I have to mention a thing or two about him before I tell his story.

Joe is ex-Marine and 30+ years state trooper. And with the little he has shared with me about what he has seen and lived thru, he is NOT one who is prone to hyperbole. And he is a humble, intelligent, Godly man.

Joe's eyes are half out of his head when he says "Did you SEE what just happened?" Turns out he was out maybe 30 yards (and YES, I cautioned him about the currents there, etc.), maybe chest deep. He 's watching the large float, maybe 30' from him, when suddenly a shark comes out of the water near the float. (He saw it so clearly that by his repeated description I'm believing it was likely either a Blacktip or a Bull). Joe's humble estimate was "about 5' long or so". He saw the head, then the dorsal, and then the tail before it and the float took off. It stripped line from him after, his words, he was confident he had a good hook set. The shark was dragging him out as it turned right and headed to the causeway before turning straight out to deeper water. Just moments later the line broke.

I reached for the line and, sure enough, the last few inches of the line (50 lb. test Ande) was abraided. Likely the line was broken by a tail swipe.

You know, sometimes the one that got away as almost as good as one you land, especially when you've had the blessing of seeing what it was. I had the fun of laughing thinking about what if that bad boy had turned and run to him. I told him that likely we had sharks between us and the shore while we were out there. The story gets funnier every time I think about.

I'm not even gonna mention that shortly after he told his story, that he and I both quickly drank a couple 2-liter PowerAids so I could re-rig both of us with another floating rig. Another hour plus in the water netting nothing but more mullet bumps and seaweed.... But it was day to remember!


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