July 7th, 2006 - Black Tip Shark - SABIKI

After an extended absence from the water, Dewey and I headed out to the North Jetty this morning. With all of the rain and thunderstorms over the past few days, Friday seemed like it would be the first day in a long while without any rain.

During the late evening, or early morning a small front must have blown through, the flags in LaPorte were still, but the flags at Boyd’s reflected a NNE Wind at about 10-15 mph. This little front must have raised the barometric pressure and clamped the fish jaws closed.

The water was sandy green at the end of the Jetty with visibility to about 2 – 3 foot. With the wind shifting more to the ENE, there was not much protected water.

We put out cut shad, cut mullet and some live shrimp out and quickly had a nice run. A nice 4 ½ foot Black Tip Shark jumped our balloon line and the fight was on. After a few minutes, he was at the boat and I handed the rod to Dewey so I could leader the fish. I still don’t know what happened – but I swear Dewey took out his pocket knife and cut the line – for when I went to leader the fish – there was no leader – there was no fish. Dewey did a good job of acting astonished – but still … I think he was guilty somehow. (grin)

We caught a few gaftop, some small shark, but nothing else. The wind had shifted so we headed over closer to the Jetty for some semi-protected water. This also gave Dewey a chance to throw a popping cork with live shrimp up into the rocks. Didn’t have any takers there.


While we were there, I noticed little baitfish around the boat. Not for sure what they really are – shad or menhaden – but I pulled out a little SABIKI rig to see if I could catch some. I had not ever used this, but saw some guys on TV use one to pick up some bait for offshore – so I bought one next time I was at the store.

Dewey was laughing at me until I put it in the water and brought up 5 baitfish on my 5-hook SABIKI rig! I ended up putting about 15 of these guys in the baitwell.

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