We quickly scrambled to ready the gear and loaded up Troy's crew cab truck with kayak stuff, fishing stuff, comfort items and people! Nancy, JenJen and Lexi decided to stay home, but (left to right) Shawn, Troy, Bentley and Holly were all for a sharking adventure!
We arrived at Blind Pass around 11pm. We wanted to fish the Captiva side of the pass, but with the dredging construction going on, parking is only available on the Sanibel Side of the pass. Troy dropped our gear on the side of the road and as Shawn and I readied everything, Troy went and parked then walked back to help us haul the gear out to the beach. It's sure nice having young guys around to do the heavy lifting and hauling!
Shawn and I rigged the fishing gear while Holly and Troy relaxed on the beach.
Bentley had about as much fun playing with the headlamp we let him wear as he did fishing!
We casted out a chunk ogf ladyfish on my Penn 750ssm rig, and I kayaked out a whole bluefish bait on the Penn 12/0 and a whole spanish mackerel bait on one of the Penn 9/0's. I dropped the spanish mack about 250 yards offshore and the bluefish closer to 400 yards off. The wind was still high and the surf was pounding. Quite a scary paddle out and really tough blasting through the big breakers! At least paddling out you can see the breakers in the headlamp light, but paddling back IN is the really tricky part because the surf hits you from behind and you can't see it coming. I made it in okay and Shawn volunteered to kayak out the next two baits.
We had whole ladyfish on the Penn 6/0 and the other Penn 9/0. I told Shawn to drop the 6/0 bait about 100 yards off (just beyond the breakers) and to take the other bait about 150 or so yards out. That way we had baits from 50 yards (the spinning rod) all the way out to 400 yards (the 12/0). Shawn struggled a bit getting through the surf. He kept getting pummled hard by the breakers and by the time he got the kayak moving again, the next set would hit him hard! Eventually he struggled through and got beyond the surf. He did a picture perfect re-entry too and made it back safely without getting dumped!
It was probably 1:00am before we had all the baits out and settled down on the beach to wait for a run. Little Bentley checked out early and Troy managed a few catnaps himself while we waited for sometheing to happen.
We had a hard time getting the 12/0 spider weight to hold bottom. We'd reel it tight and then a few seconds later notice slack in the line. After about the third time resetting it, I asked Shawn to reel it in. I figured something small might have taken the bait and was keeping us from setting the weight. I was right. It takes a long time to crank in 400 yards of line - even on the big Penn 12/0, and dragging an 8 ounce spider weight makes it work too! When Shawn finally had the leader visible in the surf, we saw that he had a big topsail catfish on the line!
Not exactly what we were after, but at least we caught SOMETHING!
We reeled in the other long bait to check it too. I figured if we were going to paddle out another bait to replace the bluefish, we might as well check the spanish mack bait. Good thing we did since it had been eaten too - without a hookup.
Shawn was somewhat less than eager to battle the surf in the kayak again, so I paddled out the baits again. The wind had picked up and the surf was even nastier than my first trip out. I got pounded really hard getting out but finally broke through into clear water. Re had rebaited with whole ladyfish and I dropped them 300 and 400 yards out then paddled back in. But I didn't fare as well as the first time. A huge wave lifted the stern of the kayak and though I was back-paddling like a fool trying to let it roll beneath me, it started surfing the kayak down the face of the wave! The nose of the kayak buried itself in the water at the bottom of the wave and launched me in a forward flip into the surf.
Now just wading at night knee deep in the ocean can be a spooky thing, but swimming way out in heavy surf at 2:00am when you've just dropped bloody fish bait in shark infested waters is NOT fun! Remarkably my glasses stayed on thanks to my eyeglass safety strap and my headlamp not only stayed on my head, but continued working despite a salt water soaking! The waves took the kayak all the way to shore, so it had a long, lonely, spooky swim back in. Shawn was visibly relieved that I'd made in in safely. (He didn't want to have to come out after me!)
We fished until 4:00am without a darned thing happening. We kept seeing something moving at waters edge just beyond the range of our headlamps. I snapped this photo in the blind and lo and behold! We discovered what it was we'd been seeing!
We finally packed it in, reeled our lines in, and headed home. It was near 6:00am before we got home.
No sharks to show for our efforts, but we'd had a fun night none-the-less!
Life is good!
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