Hello all, my name is Michael, I recently completed my bachelors of science in Marine Biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston. I look to work for a few years before returning to earn my masters. I come from the Texas panhandle, where fishing was all but existant. I first started fishing saltwater in March of 2012 and since then I think I have done pretty good. I have caught to my knowledge the following species:
Red drum, black drum, croaker, whiting, southern stingray, speckled trout, sand trout, silver trout, big headed sea robin, pinfish, mullet, cutlassfish, florida pompano, jack crevalle, blacktip shark, atlantic sharpnose, bonnethead, spanish mackeral, had a king on but lost it, flounder.
Off shore species so far:
Cobia, almaco jack, red snapper, lane snapper, greater amberjack, blackfin tuna.
I have only been offshore 3 times. The first time was on a research trip, and fishing was something we did on hte side. In about an hours worth of fishing time i managed to bring back a 49 1/2 in ling on my first trip.
The second trip was a 12 hour party boat trip and myself and my fishing partner in crime brought back the biggest fish on the boat, two amberjack, which were small but keepers and not bad for march i guess.
The third trip was a 36 hour tuna trip upon which i brought back one of the biggest fish on the boat with a fair size almaco jack and i also boated 12 blackfin tuna which i believe was about the 4th highest number of tuna on the trip.
I have had an extreme amount of failure with land based shark fishing however. Last summer I hooked into a 5 ft spinner shark on my 6/0 which breached the water about 300 yards out and I lost. Since then despite using an array of different baits, at different locations, at different times of the year, I STILL have not brought in my own shark on a rod and reel that is over 4 feet. We have just about everything we need and shark fish with an international 80 vsw, avet exw 50, and the newest a fin nor santiago 50w. I am looking to seek information on basically what the hell im doing wrong in my trials of LBSF.
Hopefully this will be a good learning experience and a nice addition to my regular visits to extremecoast, 2coolfishing, and sharksonthesand
Thanks all
Michael