Padre Island National Seashore(Tx) Sharkathon 2010

Just wanted to post up my recent experience with Sharkathon 2010 on Padre Island National Seashore. I was informed my 80" Bull was 4th place behind 84", 86.5" and 96" Bulls.

Mark Conner (chumbisket) and I drove down Thursday afternoon and hung out at the HQ. Signed in and took off Friday morning. Around the mid 20's we got behind two trucks with trailers that were stuck. After about 5 minutes and they had made no headway I decided to pull around them. Sunk the truck. Mark and I dug and wet sand for about 30 minutes. Finally, a guy who stopped to give us a hand said, "did you know your front tires aren't turning?" Not really, since I am in the truck when trying to drive. After checking my hubs I found something had bumped one of them out of Lock. Snapped it back in and off we went. We were met by Tommy Sneed who I had met before but did not really know well. He was a joy to fish with and a hell of a lot of fun in camp.

We got started catching bait and caught a bunch of big Skipjack. I rigged some cut bait on my surf rods and deployed them just over and just inside the outside sand bar. After a couple of hours I started reeling them in. When I picked up the third rod, the line was pretty weeded out, but took off up current. I fought this fish for about an hour on the 40# line on the Harrington 542 and Newell 344. When I got it to the second sand bar, and could see it in the waves, I could see it was a good fish. We finally got it to the beach and had a good 74.5" Male Bull. Look at the tiny little claspers. Ain't he cute?

We put big baits out around dark and waited. No more runs during the night. In the morning we had a 6" wide bite out of a 5# stingray wing, but nothing else was touched. At daylight we changed baits and redeployed. Each time we put out baits we cut a 22#-25# Jackfish into three pieces and used a 5#-7# piece of ray as the 4th bait. Around 1230 on Saturday we were talking among ourselves. I had just finished saying to Tommy we wanted to see the Nerf ball on the line headed for the ocean and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ the baseball patterned ball on my 12/0 disappears into the water. 30 minutes later we put this 80" female Bull on the sand. Measure, photograph and off she goes.

This was a spectacular weekend. Having the opportunity to spend time on the sand with old and new friends is a blessing. We had friends fishing in the low 20's who hooked a fish that ran 250yds off a 14/0 and had the line cut by a section of broken off braid that drifted though with a redfish on the end of it. Dianna got cut off the better part of an hour into the fight. I'm sure they were sick. But she, her dad and Troy handled it with grace and composure. It was really good seeing friends from all over the country out there on the sand.

I would like to thank the Sharkathon crew for thier hard work. In the 70's and 80's as part of the Houston Galveston Monster Fisherman Club we put on a tournament every year. In the words of Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain!" Also, kudos to all the contestants. There is a lot on the line in this tournament. Money, street creds, etc. Everyone I met handled themselves very well. I've seen lesser men, who claim to be all about no competition, fall apart with the pressure of just a few days fishing, and nothing on the line. It is a pleasure to be around a community of sportsmen and women who can go out and have fun doing what they love and treat others with respect.

Congratulations to all the winners. I look forward to Sharkathon 2011, if my poor tired old body can handle it. God Bless you all!

Mark Duncan