Beaufort Area Redfish Flotilla (BARF) Rodeo Report

The morning started off promising, no wind or bad weather in the forecast until late afternoon... 

I arrived at the designated rendesvous point at 0530, to find Shaun there yak loaded and waiting to go....  We waited around for 30 minutes, for the others we expected to participate. to arrive... 

NO ONE SHOWED UP!   Talk about being disappointed....

Deciding that we were it for the day, or that others might already be at the launch site, we drove on to Parris Island and to Elliot's Beach landing.  A glassy smooth Broad River awaited, with only a couple of power boats already targetting Cobia at the rip in sight, but no other anglers....  Now I am very disappointed....

Not desiring to waste a BEAUTIFUL day, we unload our kayaks, and head out to the reef, to sabiki up some bait...  In no time, we add some whiting, croakers, calico bass and small bonnethead sharks to our days catch.

We then headed in towards the jetty.  On the way in, I dropped a whiting on my hook about 200 yards out.  When I got to the jetty, I dropped my cajun anchor and waited...  My other rods cast out with fresh shrimp in the flats, in an effort to catch anything that would bite....

About 20 minutes later, the rod with the whiting suddenly bends hard and the line starts peeling off....  I reach and grab the rod from the rod holder and start to apply pressure (Using circle hooks, so no need to set the hook)...  In the distance a HUGE Fish jumps 3 or 4 feet out of the water, and shakes its head...  My first thought, which I yelled out to Shaun, is TARPON..  But this is WAY TOO Early for such a fish in this area...

The ensuing fight, had this fish leap an additional three times, and it is not until it is about 5 feet from the kayak, that I realize it is an over 4' long Spinner Shark. After tiring it out, I am able to secure its business end with my lip gripper and pull it out of the water for Shaun to take a photo.  It was 40 inches from the tip of the nose to the fork in the tail, and over 50 inches total length.  To date, the largest fish I have ever landed in a kayak.



I peddal back out to the rip to get another Whiting, and rebait my rig.  Again, I drop it off a couple hundred yards from the Jetty and peddal back in to drop anchor and wait....

Shaun has been fishing the shoreline and jetty for flounder and reds, and has a couple of whiting and a croaker to his credit, when he hooks something bigger, and after a couple of minutes fight, loses a decent sized black fish a few feet from the kayak...  It is not striped, so it isn't a Sheepshead or a juvenile Black Drum...  We suspect a decent sized Black Drum...But cannot be sure....

Suddenly, my rod with the whiting bends and line starts peeling off the reel, quickly...  Much quicker than with the Spinner Shark.  I grab the rod and apply pressure, and I am off to the races....  The tide is coming in quicly, and he takes me against it at a decent pace, he circles to the left, so hard and fast that my kayak and I pirouette in the water.  He then continues the run, another 100 or so yards, and again, pirouetees me around....  Five times, I am pirouetted and pulled a quarter mile, against the current by this fish....  I finally see what he is, the largest Atlantic Sharpnose Shark I have ever seen....  Not much longer than the Spinner Shark, but MUCH THICKER in the body.  After several additional runs, and futile attempts to get the lip gripper in his mouth, I finally have success, and quicly hoist him out of the water and into my lap for Shaun to get another picture...  I did not measure this shark with my Paddle, but have used math and the photo to determine his fork tail length at 43" and his total length at 53"....  Using the formule for circumference of Pi x (r x r), I estimate his girth at 27-28 inches....  MUCH thicker than my thigh, which he was!  This shark was much larger than the Spinner I had caught earlier.  Now my new personal best!

From personal estimate and NOAA shark weight and length tables (Compared to a Sandbar Shark since I could find nothing on the Atlantic Sharpnose, and the Sandbar is similiar in body shape and size), I suspect this fish to be in the 45-50 lb range, the upper end of the data chart.

http://na.nefsc.noaa.gov/sharks/lw/sandbar.html



The winds started to pick up and we headed back in, meeting another kayak fisherman who had been catching SPanish Mackerel... I joined him and soon had a very small Spanish Mackerel (10") to add to my days catch...

When we get to the launch we meet S1TPilot (James) at the landing, and decide that the Broad River is to rough o continue this day, and he and Shaun decide to head to the Honey Hole and target Redfish...  I head home, as I need to get things prepared for a some grilling and cooking at my house for later this evening...

James ends up landing a HUGE Redfish, his largest to date, after an epic battle..  Shaun again gets a great picture of the catch.



They both later come to my house for a great dinner of grilled chicken, two pasta salads, pork loin, grilled corn on the cob, the tastiest Cole Slaw I have ever eaten, some black beans and rice that was awesome, and a desert of ice cream and strawberries, and Turtle Cookies.....  All washed down with copious amounts of Margerita's...  What a GREAT DAY...

Too bad no one else bothered to make the trip and join us in the experience.

Oh well, maybe next year..  I know for me, it will be next weekend.

Damn I want some good southern cooking....And I really miss shark fishing...Its so much fun because it is such a primitive form of fishing imo...at least until the landing phase of the fight

Sounds like an awesome day

I also miss the days of having multiple rods out with the bait clickers on and kinda drifting off only to be awaken by the screaming smoking real a couple feet away