sleepyluke

CATFISH SUCK!! We caught catfish by the bucketful. ANywhere from 6 inches to about 4 pounds. Moved up and down the beach with out much success of getting way from them. Had a great time, but alot of the time we could not get back to the beach before we had one on. Water was very brown, but no grass or jellyfish, so I can't complain too much. I guess I jinxed myself by not catching a single catfish last year. We did catch ladyfish, whiting and something that is yet to be identified, looked like a defective blue. Cut bait would get hit every once and a while, but that is what we caught the big catfish on. Fihsed several mornings, almost every evening. Had a great time and am completely hooked even with the little terd catfish.

Made good friends with a couple heron. They would get between us and the water and almost play goalie with the catfish trying to get them before you could get them back in the water. It was actually pretty funny. Give them a few shrimp along the way and they will get pretty close to you.

By the way, even though I am one of the tourist that everybody hates, there was a group that would come out almost everyday right in front of us and set up about 11 am and fish till about 1. They were all up in the middle of people swimming and playing on the beach. COme on idiots, use a little common sense. One time I witnessed a somewhat misthrow that came within about 5 feet a 3 girls on a raft. Meanwhile there was 500 yards the other direction without a soul in the water. I said something one day about half joking about it and they moved about 10 feet. Oh well.

All in all great week of sun and fun and will be back next year to do it all over again!!

Pier#r

Great report (even with the catfish ;-)

Always glad to hear someone had a good time beach fishing!

Here's a pic that may help with your fish ID. The one on top is a bluefish and the two on bottom are blue runner (aka hardtail). Maybe that was what you caught?

sleepyluke

Thanks for the pics. It really looked more like a hardtail, but a little long and slender. Tail was like the hard tail, but did not have the "football" like look. That is why we are still unsure. Oh well all in all a great week. If we catch that many catfish next year, I think we are going to at least eat one. May be bad, but we are going to eat something!!!

Thanks for putting up with another out of towner coming to the forum and trying to soak up the knowledge so that I don't look quite as stupid down on the beach....

Hellcat171

Was it slimy and did a bunch of scales come off? Maybe a ladyfish?

Don't worry about being a tourist here, most people are cool and the ones that aren't should leave anyway.

Keep at the surf- there are a ton of great fish out there.

sleepyluke

I don't think it was a ladyfish, we caught some of them.

What I don't get is last year we were fishing with freshwater crappy tackle at best, maybe 100yds of line and caught sharks, ladyfish, stingrays and all kinds of stuff. We spend a little money over the year to get some decent surf tackle with 250+yards of line, cast further, shorter did not matter, read this forum to learn what to do and we catch catfish by the bucketful and probably 5 non catfish all week. Go figure.....

Fishforlife2

ladyfish?



cigar minnow?

gtchris19

What did you use for bait? LIVE shrimp usually cuts down on the catfish bites considerably. Also, in my experience, once the sun goes down it's hard to catch anything but a cat fish in the surf. But that's just my "limited" experience.

sleepyluke

We fed them dead shrimp and even sand fleas if they ate the shrimp fast enough. have to try the live next time. We bought some last year, used good bait bucket and they wwere all dead before we made it to the beach and we were less than 5 miles and 30 min to the water. Could not get to the replacement water fast enough. Live and learn, we will surely do it again!! Thanks for the tips though