Crystal Beach Sharks

[bigfost]

Originally Posted by surfguy

Are you using balloons to keep your bait off the bottom or just for marking?

We use the balloons to fish baits higher in the water column. Most of us fish at least two baits, with one on the bottom and one under a balloon.

[surfguy]

Interesting.. A couple more questions if you don't mind:
How long a leader do you use to make sure the bottom bait reaches?
What kind of balloons and where can I get some?

[bigfost]

Originally Posted by surfguy

Interesting.. A couple more questions if you don't mind:
How long a leader do you use to make sure the bottom bait reaches?
What kind of balloons and where can I get some?

You may have misunderstood. We only fish one bait per rod. I was saying most of us fish one rod with a bottom bait and a second rod with a balloon bait.

Most of the people I fish with are fishing 400# mono leaders between 5 and 6 feet long. They have to be short enough we can cast them sitting down in the kayaks.

We get an occasional fish bit off on the mono leaders, but the 400# and circle hooks will land most sharks.

Any dollar store has party balloons.

[HuntinforTail]

bigfost is talking about fishing out of his kayak beyond the breakers, not about fishing from the beach with a surf rod. If there is any more than a minimal amount of weed in the water, fishing from the beach will be very hard. Floating balloons from the beach isn't going to work either. Your best bet from the beach would be kayaking baits or casting.

There are lots of sharks caught in that area every year. A couple bulls over 8 feet long were caught right near rollover pass last year in casting distance from the sand.

[surfguy]

Yes, I did misunderstand. It sounded like some high tech secret fishing technique you would see in a National Geographic documentary Why would anyone fish 2 baits on one line with a 10c balloon, duh!

[ranger-370]

Thanks everyone. We are trying Crysrtal Beach this year because the weed was so bad in the Surfside-Quintana area last year that you couldn't keep a hook down using a motor block for a weight...LOL We will also have our boat and fish East Bay some but I love surf fishing for reds and specs and also like to lay out at least on large shark rod.