Palm Beach weekend trip

Headed down to Palm Beach this past weekend. I had heard reports of crazy amounts of blacktips in the area..
We drove down Friday from St. Simons and made it there in under 5.5 hours. Once we got there we ate at Benny's on the Lake Worth Pier. While waiting on the food i walked out onto the pier, but not many guys were fishing. There was also a very stout SE wind making the surf incredibly heavy, at least by my standards. Later that night i went down the beach a little ways with casted rods in hopes of a blacktip, but after a few hours there were no takers. The next morning my dad and I went north about 30 minutes to the palm beach inlet south jetty. After a brutal walk with way too much gear, we got to the jetty. (still didnt have the yak because of heavy surf) I threw lures for hours at first to no avail. X raps, poppers, spoons, you name it I threw it, but no takers. I walked out to the very tip of the jetty where i saw a huge jack swimming in a cresting wave. I hurried back to get a popper and sat at the end while getting pounded by waves only to have one big jack come up behind it, but it never ate. After i got pounded on the tip for about 30 minutes, i got down and began throwing a little further down the jetty towards shore. I saw a blacktip free jump right off the jetty so i threw near it. Next cast, i had a blacktip sky on my popper, but sadly he missed it. After seeing more tippers free jump i decided to go grab a shark rig and put it out. I cut up a nice chunk of bonita and sent it probably 20 yards off the jetty. Within 45 seconds i had a blacktip on. Somehow i subdued this one within 3 minutes.. not sure how..he never really ran or anything, just pulled a few yards then i had him up top, but of course, just like every other jetty shark i ever hook he decided to go into the rocks... I handed my dad the rod and i climbed down into the rocks to dislodge him, but after a few minutes of pulling he had come off. Oh well, at least i got to see him. he was about 5.5 feet.

hooked up to the first tipper.

After that i re rigged and threw out another bonita chunk. within 20 seconds i felt one begin to eat. I told my dad there was one eating, and he didn't believe me, but he started to video anyways. A few seconds later i had a nice blacktip smoking my saltist. got this one in withing 5 minutes, i dont know why they werent fighting very hard.


We got this one up to the open area at the end of the jetty, and i was pulling up as hard as i could to get it up on the surface for a good picture, but in the midst of the waves slamming, and the shark trying to dash my rod blew blew around the second guide... I was honestly very surprised. The rod had been great so far, but oh well. We managed to get a couple of pics, but nothing good.



these pictures help to show how rough it was.
I'm confident i could have caught plenty more sharks after that one. The bite was on, but i had no other rods suited for sharks with me. We had to leave the inlet while the bite was hot.. it sucked.
later that evening the surf had calmed down considerably, but was still rough compared to what i'm used to up in Georgia.
I managed to send out a 15 lb ray on my 12 and a smaller 3-4 lb bonita on my 50. Within 20 minutes both of those baits were already ravaged by blacktips.. I noticed the 12 was slack, so i reeled it in to find the ray was ravaged with bite marks. While i was tending to that, the 50 started screaming. I got over to it and let it run for a second before setting the hook, but somehow i missed it. By that time it was dark, and i really didnt feel like flipping out there in the dark lol. So i did what any hardcore (stupid) teenage sharker would do... i took the rest of that ray, re rigged it, and swam it out about 20 yards. Within 5 minutes that line had already been cut by a blacktip. So there i sat, on the beach, alone, with 3 baits gone within 35 minutes or so.. I decided to give it up for the night.


Went back out the next morning to the same spot to find much calmer seas... Made quick work of sending out a small jack and a bonita, but after almost 3 hours of soaking nothing touched them.

All in all I learned a few things...
be prepared for rough weather situations
bring more rods than you think you need
and lastly, it's cool to see your bait sitting on the bottom in 20 feet of water (something we will never see in Georgia)
Heres a couple more random pictures i took. Thanks for reading.