Time: 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Air Temperature: 91 Degrees
Water Temperature:
Air Temperature: 91 Degrees
Water Temperature:
Lake Level:
Weather Conditions:
Decided to change things up a bit and fish outside my TN River Valley freshwater comfort zone. We’ve fished both inshore and offshore saltwater before but never surf/pier fished. Sine we were going to be in PCB, I thought we’d give it a try.
I packed my heaviest spinning gear I use for big cats and all my heavy tackle. I wasn’t really sure what I would need. I met my brother-in-law, Sean, and we headed out around lunch to see if we could watch what the crowd was doing on Russell-Fields Pier.
We observed the crowd was using rod and reels much like we brought. Most were using cigar minnows and other caught baitfish and were targeting King Mackerel, Spanish Mackerel, Cobia, and Bonita. There were floating the bait on steel leaders with treble hooks and a trailer treble. There weren’t event using weights. We watched for about and hour and saw several mackerel landed and one sand shark. We were pumped and decided to head back for lunch and gear up at the pier tackle shop, Half Hitch.
Half Hitch is al excellent tackle shop outfitted with everything you need to pier or surf fish. We bought some steel leaders and trebles, some cigar minnows and squid, and a pier net and headed out.
We started out on the end of the pier fishing with one floating rig and one bottom rig. I quickly realized the bottom rig with squid was futile. The small baitfish were tearing the squid clean before any decent fish could find it. Sean was fishing a floating cigar minnow like most of the crowd. Shortly after we got there, people were landing nice mackerel, but the dolphins moved in and were ripping the mackerel off the hooks as fishermen reeled them in or left nothing but a head and carcass. We had a tough time catching anything after the dolphins moved in, so we moved back down the pier towards the shallows and spotted some sharks, so we set up again and targeted sharks.
We fished the same floating cigar minnow rigs and quickly started getting hits. Sean got a couple good tugs and then I saw a shark hit it and run. It put up one hell of a fight, but he managed to land it. I pulled it up by the line. It was awesome! It was about a 3 feet sand shark. We drew a crowd and let the kids take pictures and touch the shark’s sand-paper like skin. Everyone was amazed that we caught one.
Soon after, I got a good hit and a shark took off with my line and had my drag smoking. I reached up to try to tighten it down and was literally burned by it spinning so fast. I fought it for a good while and finally managed to get it to the pier. Another fisherman saw me fighting it and brought his pier net over to help me land it. It was about a 3.5 ft long sand shark! It has always been a dream of mine to land a shark, so I can finally check that off the list. We again let the kids take pictures and touch the shark and let it go again.
We decided we’d end on a good note and heard back in for the evening and try again tomorrow. What an experience!
Decided to change things up a bit and fish outside my TN River Valley freshwater comfort zone. We’ve fished both inshore and offshore saltwater before but never surf/pier fished. Sine we were going to be in PCB, I thought we’d give it a try.
I packed my heaviest spinning gear I use for big cats and all my heavy tackle. I wasn’t really sure what I would need. I met my brother-in-law, Sean, and we headed out around lunch to see if we could watch what the crowd was doing on Russell-Fields Pier.
We observed the crowd was using rod and reels much like we brought. Most were using cigar minnows and other caught baitfish and were targeting King Mackerel, Spanish Mackerel, Cobia, and Bonita. There were floating the bait on steel leaders with treble hooks and a trailer treble. There weren’t event using weights. We watched for about and hour and saw several mackerel landed and one sand shark. We were pumped and decided to head back for lunch and gear up at the pier tackle shop, Half Hitch.
Half Hitch is al excellent tackle shop outfitted with everything you need to pier or surf fish. We bought some steel leaders and trebles, some cigar minnows and squid, and a pier net and headed out.
We started out on the end of the pier fishing with one floating rig and one bottom rig. I quickly realized the bottom rig with squid was futile. The small baitfish were tearing the squid clean before any decent fish could find it. Sean was fishing a floating cigar minnow like most of the crowd. Shortly after we got there, people were landing nice mackerel, but the dolphins moved in and were ripping the mackerel off the hooks as fishermen reeled them in or left nothing but a head and carcass. We had a tough time catching anything after the dolphins moved in, so we moved back down the pier towards the shallows and spotted some sharks, so we set up again and targeted sharks.
We fished the same floating cigar minnow rigs and quickly started getting hits. Sean got a couple good tugs and then I saw a shark hit it and run. It put up one hell of a fight, but he managed to land it. I pulled it up by the line. It was awesome! It was about a 3 feet sand shark. We drew a crowd and let the kids take pictures and touch the shark’s sand-paper like skin. Everyone was amazed that we caught one.
Soon after, I got a good hit and a shark took off with my line and had my drag smoking. I reached up to try to tighten it down and was literally burned by it spinning so fast. I fought it for a good while and finally managed to get it to the pier. Another fisherman saw me fighting it and brought his pier net over to help me land it. It was about a 3.5 ft long sand shark! It has always been a dream of mine to land a shark, so I can finally check that off the list. We again let the kids take pictures and touch the shark and let it go again.
We decided we’d end on a good note and heard back in for the evening and try again tomorrow. What an experience!
No comments:
Post a Comment