Hey, brother. You're on the right board to ask that question. Can't address specifically the beach front specifically near your weekend haunt, but the toothy rascals are all along the Texas coastal beachfront. (There are more sharks per square acre in the Gulf of Mexico than in any body of water in the world. Galveston tourist bureau won't make mention of that!)

Lately (the last two years it seems; actually since Ike), the sand bars configurations have befuddled me. More than once this summer I have attempted to swim to the 3rd bar and can't get there unless I go into an all-out swim. Doing so with a heavy bait, 8oz. spider weight, and a heavy Herrington blank and large reel adds to the challenge. Currents and seas have been rough on the Saturday's I go, and I've been every Sat. except two since early May. Last Sat. I began a swim and was immediately taken up the coast. Got back to the second sandbar, casted, and came to shore about 60 yards from my truck. That bait and the 8oz. long-legged spider weight tumbled up the coast in spite of my efforts to sick it.

My two cents say to get to the back end of the second sand bar and heavy-ho from there. I, too, use a kayak to sometimes drop shark baits, but on days where the surf is heavy I've been the one to be 'dropped.' Maybe 'IamMatt' will chime in. He's pretty accomplished at dropping baits offshore. I learned a lot from him a couple weekends ago and was even thinking just 15 minutes ago about a couple of the things he showed me.

Good luck. Rip some lips!

 

If you have more than 1 rod set them at various distances. I've caught sharks there from 400 yards out, to the second gut, and in between, but usually try to set them at least past the 3rd bar.

 

There's a pic on bait deployment here: http://www.tx-sharkfishing.com/shark-fishing/shark-bait-deployment/. They show prime bait deployment way beyond the 3rd sandbar. My thought was that fish cruise parallel to the sand bars (on the deep side) rather than open ocean. My thought was to find a cut in a sandbar and drop the bait near the cut. Should I drop it behind the 3rd bar or go way past the 3rd bar?

 

I'm out here now. Surf is mud out to 3rd bar. Hopefully calmer conditions in the morning will let me get a trout bite in the AM. Good luck

 

Anything biting long lines? We were going to head out there but kid had emergency dental and still wants to go but Temps look ridiculously hot too. Think we'll hit it next weekend and let things chill out for a bit.

 

If I had one rod to use, I would drop my bait on the backside slope of the 3rd bar. Don't worry about putting it far and deep. The only time I would take baits any farther than that would be in a color change, in a concentration of bait or slicks.

 

Seems like we do better with long drops when it is very sunny and clear water. We'll rebait before dusk and drop right past the 3rd bar. Yaking out at night isn't too fun and you are more than ready to chunk the bait off when you reach the 3rd bar.

 

keep in mind when you reel up the slack/set the weight or whatnot to not inadvertently pull your bait up onto the bar. I think more people do that than would like to admit and it can make all the difference.

Here in galveston theres been a ton of mullet in the surf; havent seen many pelicans diving on shad or shad flicks lately.

 

The water is really muddy. Been out 3 times and nothing. So frustrating. Been trying to catch as shark in the surf for a while now and conditions are never right.

 

Looks bad *** today..

 

Yaneverno

I wasn't expecting much yesterday afternoon either. A little too sandy and I was on the backside of high tide. I'm a novice surf fisherman so I'm very frequently just wrong. Sometimes it is 2cool to be wrong.

Got to Surfside around 3 and after seeing the water I figured I'd make it a whiting haul. But, all I could catch were little croakers so I re-figured, "Why not?" and ran a couple out. Before I could get back in with the second line I have a 3 foot blacktip on line 1. This is my first keeper shark on purpose so I'm doing a little happy dance. While dealing with that little guy I look up to see a run on line 2, missed him. I run line 1 back out with another 6 inch croaker and repeat with line 2. The tide was going out but still had some water so the last few yards to bar 3 were swimmers. I had just touched down after the return swim with line 2 and the rod about gets ripped out of my hands.

This was a FISH!!!!! I flipped the bail over and a 5+ footer launched what looked like twice her length straight up way out past the 3rd bar. It was probably only a couple feet in reality but all my senses were adrenaline fueled at this point. Man a GoPro would have been nice for that!

I use pretty light tackle (20lb mono over 30lb braid) so the first run was a scorcher. Unfortunately she ran right for line 1. It probably turned out to be a good thing since then she had to drag two 4 ounce spiders around besides me leaning on her.

Best part was hollering at the wife "I got a big one!!!" and having this very shark-o-phobe girl WANT to get out in the water to take a couple pics.

Sharkchum gets plenty of props on here but I have to say that if I hadn't seen all his dirty water fish pics I probably would have never bothered to take those baits out. Thanks SC!

Oh yeah, got a bunch of whiting too:dance:

 

Here you go try this one.

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