# High Island Report 4/4-4/6



## hardheadeater (Apr 17, 2006)

My brother and I have used this account to post a lot of questions and learned a lot from this forum over the last 2 years, but we haven't posted a real shark report yet, so here's the first one. Being fairly inexperienced, I've found that the more detailed a reports that I've read have been, the more I learned, so I'm gonna include a lot of details in hopes that new guys can learn just like I have:

4/4/08
We showed up to Rocky's fishing pier at 10:30 am and my bro registered for the shark tournament which started at 12, so he was the rod and reel guy for the trip, and I was designated kayaker and leader man. We also brought some friends who wanted to tag along and barbecue, etc. 
We set up between the piers and started out with a cownose wing and a mackerel out about 400 yds each, and something bounced the rod with the mack within 1 hour, but we reeled it in empty. At 2, a small storm came in and blew our canopy away, breaking it, and we had to reel in the other rod till the rain and wind stopped a few hours later. 
We set out a whole cownose ray and whole dead horse mullet in the late afternoon. The ray we TRIED to rig like the guy shows in the TX shark fishing manual with a threading needle, 2 big J hooks and a brace in between to hold them up straight, but we couldn't manage to make the brace work. If anyone can show how they do that, I'd appreciate it. The mullet was hooked through the stomach cavity and out the anal orifice with a 20/0 Lazer sharp circle hook by eagle claw, and held tight with 3 zip ties, with plenty of bloody holes in it. 
Just after sunset, on the outgoing tide, the rod with the mullet on it gets a SCREAMING run for about 15-20 seconds. It was the first time that happened for us, and it was just unreal. We made the mistake of waiting too long to set the hook because we thought you were supposed to wait until it stops first, so no hook up, and bait was gone. Am I right in thinking the hook should be set while the fish is still running?

4/5/08
We woke up before sunrise to take baits out early, and sent out a half bonita wrapped in pantyhose and a cownose ray wing. Came back untouched a few hours later. At about 1pm, I kayaked out a whole cownose with 2 circle hooks threaded through with a needle, no brace attached to about 400 yards. 
At 2:30, the rod dips hard and we set the hook. ZZZZZ goes the reel for a second. But then it felt light, like we missed it. So we started reeling it in, thinking it was empty until we saw fins in the surf. I grabbed the shark's tail, surprised to see it was a blacktip, and pulled it in. Since it didn't put up a fight, I figured it would have been a bull, since thats how we caught our only other shark last year. Rocky came and measured it out to 4' 9" and 1/4, putting us in 2nd place out of 50 entries up to that point. Needless to say, we were ecstatic. Since I had just got my shark tags in the mail, I REALLY wanted to tag and release my first shark, but everyone wanted to eat it because it was the first shark of the summer, so we barbecued some of it up that night and took the rest home. 
Again that night at sunset and outgoing tide, something hit our whole cownose hard, but snatched it away without turning the reel a single click.

4/6/08
We took out a couple baits at sunrise with no luck. And then at 8am, as I was taking out a whole cownose on my kayak, I see a HUGE fin to my left, heading almost straight towards me, and then it goes under. At 400 yards out, this was quite frightening. A few seconds later I see another one surface, again just about 10 yards to my left and 10 yards in front of me, heading my way. Its a DOLPHIN. Then another dolphin surfaced close to me again. I was freaked out and threw the bait and headed back. Just as I arrived, the rod dipped and went slack. The line was broken just a few yards above where the leader was. I'm SURE it was those dolphins.
To our great dismay we found out that somebody had caught a bull shark that was 4'9" and 3/8, and another guy caught an 8' lemon in the night, putting us in 4th place by just 1/8". Thats 3 mm. And the prize money would have been really sweet since we're just college students, but its all good. Maybe next tournament. Either way, it was fun and a great learning experience and I want to say thanks to Rocky for hosting it, and especially thanks to all of you that have shared your experience. Heres a summary of what I think we learned from the trip to help out other beginners:

1. For this trip we switched from straight 6' 400lb cable leaders to 10' 400 lb mono leaders with 2' traces made from nylon-coated 250 lb cable and taped our hooks and crimps with electical tape, which seems to have helped us get more hits.
2.We also switched to a few hundred yards of 50 lb braided backing, topped with 50lb izorline first string as opposed to straight 30lb test to avoid cut-offs and increase our capacity, since we just use a 6/0 wide and a 4/0. We were only cut off once, other than the dolphins.
2. We had been having problems with our lines drifting, but bought 8 oz spider weights with stainless steel legs that are kinda bullet shaped from fishing tackle unlimited, so this time, all our lines stuck straight.
3. Next time we get a screaming run, we gotta set the hook.
4. I'm considering offsetting our hooks in the future for a better hook up rate, what do you guys think?
5. Circle hooks are awesome, that shark was hooked right in the corner of the mouth.
6. I'm not afraid of sharks, but dolphins creep me out. Has anyone else had a close encounter with dolphins while kayaking??

Here are the pics:

Me with the shark









My bro with the shark









The shark steaks(which were delicious unlike the bull shark we tried to cook last year):


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## Jolly Roger (May 21, 2004)

congrats and good report. 

With circles, when the fish is running tighten the drag down on him, then pull the rod up. Make SURE to have a hard steady pull, not a jerk. It takes practice to figure out how much to tighten the drag, and when to start to pull the rod up. Most of the time, but not always a circle hook is set by your weight and you are doing nothing more then making sure it is there to stay. 

If the circle hook turns the point into the bait,there is noting you can do, and you will moss thje fish. The only problem with circle hooks are that if not rigged right, they will turn the point of the hook back into the bait. 

You might want to leave out the part about mackerel being used for bait, unless you make it a point to say it was "asian mackerel" or atlantic mackerel. I am 100% sure that you were using atlantic mackerel.

Lot of encounters with Dolphins. Very common and you start to not pay them any attention after a few times.


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## hardheadeater (Apr 17, 2006)

haha yeah the mackerel was bought from boudeax's bait shop so I figured it was legal...


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## Won Mo Kasst (Mar 27, 2008)

for your weights- i was wading the surf and i saw guys chunking cinder blocks way out there... after i was done i stopped and asked what they heck they were doing throwing cinder blocks way out there off a kayak...they had those big stingrays attached to the block with 10lb mono-when the shark makes its run it breaks off real easy and you doing have to worry about your bait moving even with the tide moving at a fast clip...its you guys that freak me out using though whole stingrays while im fishing! haha i dont wanna be in the water while yall are catching things that are eating 2 foot wide stingrays haha good luck


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## ShortyStillSurfs (Jun 22, 2008)

COOL REPORT. I WAS WONDERING IF ANYBODY HAD BEEN FISHING LATELEY NO NEW REPORTS FROM OUR AREA. WISH IT WAS ME.


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## bigfost (Oct 11, 2004)

Nice report and congrats on the catches. Y'all keep practicing and working out the bugs in your system, and you'll be putting up lots of reports in no time.

Don't worry about the dolphins, they definitely won't bother you.


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## Fishin' Soldier (Dec 25, 2007)

This Tourney, did you have to fish from the beach or is BTB an option?

JR did you fish sunday?

My and my brother headed down on the fourth, knew nothing of shark tourney. Saw the wave height and decided to wait for better conditions. I accidently left my PFD at home so I definatly wasn't heading out in that. We headed down to the pocket and found some pretty good water. >1t sea's and Great looking green water about 1/2 mile offshore. Paddled out with some balloon rigs and caught 5-6 black tips about 2.5-3ft. All babies. Had fun and No trout at all. Kinda disapointing. Trolled a large jerkbait out to the sunken ship and had a ridiculous hit and run. Pulled the hooks before I could get rod out of rod holder. I am sure it was probably a shark. They were thick but little. Nice report and good luck in the future. JR is the man when it comes to shark fishing and BTB take his advice to heart.


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## lunkerbrad (Feb 17, 2007)

Fishin' Soldier said:


> Trolled a large jerkbait out to the sunken ship and had a ridiculous hit and run. Pulled the hooks before I could get rod .
> 
> what ship did you hit there are a few


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## Jolly Roger (May 21, 2004)

Fishin' Soldier said:


> JR did you fish sunday?
> 
> .


I did not fish sunday. I was at Stingaree most of saturday night at a music fest. The wind never laid, and was still chopopy when we left around 11.


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## Fishin' Soldier (Dec 25, 2007)

*??*



lunkerbrad said:


> Fishin' Soldier said:
> 
> 
> > what ship did you hit there are a few
> ...


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## hardheadeater (Apr 17, 2006)

Thanks for the tips, JR, and Fishin' Soldier, this tourney was from the beach/pier only, no BTB.


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## Fishin' Soldier (Dec 25, 2007)

Awesome trip buddy keep it up. Hope to see ya'll down there one day..


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