by crawley15 » Sat Feb 26, 2011 2:15 pm
My zip code is 66216. That's Kansas. But hey, we used to have beach side property here...like 80 million years ago. Out in the Chalk Hills we find the fossilized teeth of many sport fishes, sharks, and saurases. Even though I am sort of trapped by this current cosmic dispensation in the Wheat State, I do have some ideas about fave lures for the beach. And my wife earns airline travel miles.
X-rap jerk bait. I have caught all kinds of fish from the surf, piers, inlets and jetties on this lure. Olive color. Forget the rest, they are only eye candy. From Maryland (Indian River Inlet ) to both coasts of Florida I have 'tried em up' and done quite well from the shore--never a boat. Blues, Stripers, weakfish, Jack Crevallies, SP Mack, Speckled Trout, Snook, Reds whatever. Buy all the colors you want but throw away all of them except the Olive. 7' to 7.5" inshore rod, power pro, fluorcarbon leader, 2500 to 4000 reel. SImple. Olive.
At Boca Grande ( yes Larry this is a very crowded although very tarpony place ), from a rock groin there, I hooked a 40" king mackeral and had him on for 30 seconds. He jumped, cart wheeled and we parted ways. Weird. Olive.
(I've also had two amazing adventures in Mexico with X-raps. In Puerto Vallarta and in Cabo. Similar and graphic incidents. Larry, I do not understand why you do not like Cabo. One of my favorite tricks is to cast into bait balls under diving birds. The guides think I am a crazy Norte Americano. Tell me, where can you hook a sail fish in the prop wash while trying to land a bonito that just glommed onto your olive colored X-rap? Shucks, I had to throw my sandwich overboard and spent 10 minutes landing a sailfish that wasn't hooked but would not let go of my bonito. After that exchange I told the guide the birds had moved. Then a very silly 145# Marlin managed to peel off a couple hundred yards as we trolled a hoochie over to the next bait ball. The sun was up high by that time and after a sweaty battle I resumed casting into bait balls. In a National Geographic moment, probably the only one I will ever have, a 30' Bights Whales inhaled my X-rap along with a 1000 pounds of sardines right off of the bow.I could not tell if a wave splashed by trousers and got me wet or if I peed my pants. It was a small boat. Either way, my guide started the boat to bring chase, but we were unlucky. The whale came unbuttoned. Larry, that doesn't sound to me like a place with too many people. That sounds like a place with too few fishermen. Cabo is the fishiest place I have ever been, which is not saying much because I have not been to the exotic locations you travel to. X-Rap Color: Olive. Bight's Whales are suckers for them.)
Oh yeah, in Cabo, in fours hours I caught enough dorado to make ceviche for an entire cruise ship. Dang the good luck. X-Rap: Color: Olive, casting, yanking and jerking under bait balls.
The only Mexican surf denizen that will not hit an X-rap is a rooster-fish. Got a lot of follows, but no takers. Wow what an amazing fish with they get excited and 'light up'. I did not cry when they did not bite, but i thought about it.
Jigs and Plastic. Geez. I always have two rods rigged when I am near the beach. One with an X-rap and one with a jig head and plastic dressing. For some unknown reason and in spite of all wisdom otherwise, a strawberry color almost always works on Texas beaches and a light or clear color on Florida beaches. Why?
I do have a very, crazy and deeply disturbed friend ( he records your shows and watches them over and over and then calls me to talk about your show over and over) who takes shrimp-like plastic jig bodies and threads rubber jig spider leg material throught the body. This gives the shrimp-body a lively centipede action. It is truly a labor of love. He won't doctor the strawberry colored plastics. He hates that logic-defying color as much as I do. But if the fish are undecided, his doctored concoction works oh so well. After we use them all up we start crying and then head back to the car.
I did fish out of Venice, LA for redfish with Capt Phil Roubidauex. When my son and I piled into his boat I said, Hey, what are we using today? He points to about 4 bags of pearl colored Cocahoe Minnows made by H and H. He says, 'Dah same think dat we use ev'ry day. We use what works. De redfish he so dumb he doin care. He just eat um up.' Captain Phil was right. The redfish eat'm up. Sometimes the color thing is overated. Sometimes it is already decided. But I keep a couple bags of Cocahoe Minnow in my saltwater bag. Pearl.
Swim Baits-I have had snook try to eat my shoelaces in knee deep surf while scoffing at my X-rap so I started using the 5" to 7" soft plastic swimmers. The big shad-like ones. Snook can be stupid for a swimmer. I like chasing snook at night around bridges or piers near or around some lights. On the outgoing tide you can cast uphill ( uptide ) from your fish, like stream fishing and then bang. Hang on. You will get our knuckles smashed, rod tips broken, reels spun out, knots severed. I have been reduced to tears more than one time. I have had to leave the beach and drive to 7-11 and get a cup of coffee to stop shaking. Once I was attacked by a Great Blue Heron ( at night ) because I was running up beach backwards in an effort to keep a 35" snook buttoned and I fell over him. The bird let out that blood curdling pteradactyl scream they are known for and I...well, I may have splashed myself again. That would have been my Audubon Society moment. You can only make half a dozen casts to a particular fish or rock or pier. Snooks do spook and get lock jaw. Let them rest, like most fish they have a short memory.
Snook have another amazingly annoying habit of resting in plain view and then, for some reason only known to themselves, darting out and anniliating everything in site for about 20 seconds and then going back to lock jaw mode. Don't be annoyed. Start crying, go to the nearest 7-11 and return later.
Rapala and Sebile also makes a twitch bait, dead stick bait shaped like a shad. Sometimes these are the only thing that works. A small Japanese boy (about 10 to 12 years old ) shamed me badly at Blind Pass in Captiva, Florida one day with one of Patrick's slow sinking Stick Shads. That's okay, because I went to the tackle store later--because I had a rental car and the perfidious little Japanese boy didn't-- and bo't every lure that looked like his. I shamed everybody the next day AND took all of the credit. Ha! Ha! Serves you right little boy for shaming me.
My tackle bag now contains 23 Olive colored X-raps, 6 Sebile Stick Shads, a half-dozen bandaids, Kleenex, and two pair of clean dry undies.
Kastmaster. Sorry. No list of beach/surf casting lures would be complete without a Kastmaster Spoon. There is no substitute for this seemingly stupid, inert chunk of nickel plated tin.
Out in the Chalk Hills of Kansas, just off of I-70, Bob Dole country, and just a little south of Monument Rocks, they found a fossilized toothy fish that looks an awful lot like a primitive barracuda. In the corner of his mouth, though very corroded and pitted, they found a 5/8 oz Kastmaster. The bucktail was gone but the hooks were still holding...