Eyes of the South

    We are back! After an extended absence and a lot of top secret Snook fishing endeavors, we decided to shake it up a bit and draw up a new game plan and chase a different species for a change. The Snook fishing was decent up until a few weeks ago, when the legendary SFWMD decided the water level of Lake Okeechobee was too high, and opened the flood gates to release 2.5 billion gallons of fresh water into our Indian River eco-system daily. The forecast for fishing around here for the foreseeable future is very grim, so needless to say it was time for a change.

 I met up with a good friend of mine named Jayson to check out a few spots to see if we would get lucky and find a needle in a haystack, and get some lines tight on some Snook in our new freshwater lagoon after my Buckeyes trounced the Cornhuskers. Again, we were met with the same disappointment of a fish-less wasteland which has become the norm as of late.

 While we were mingling in the parking lot, we came up with the idea to head North to the only Bull Red stronghold in South Florida to see if we can get lucky on a late night tide. We were already tired, it was already late, and we were not geared up properly to handle the task at hand. But after a lot of coaxing, Rockstar energy drinks, and some soul crushing metal pinned on the speakers, we headed North to see if we could pull off a Hail Mary miracle in the 4th quarter.

 Driving down the pitch black road at 3 ain the morning, we noticed the moon had risen, and we were under what we like to call  the "Eyes of the South" moon, which we like to believe is a good sign of things to come, but little did we know what difficulties we would have to overcome in a short amount of time....

  Upon arrival at the Inlet, we discovered that all my cast nets had been removed from my assault vehicle. Strike one, and it might as well have been strike two as well. We had about 40 minutes to come up with some sort of bait, and we had no bait catching device, needless to say the outlook for this trip got grim very quickly. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and that's when we found a cooler left next to a fillet station for anglers to donate their Snook carcasses to science. I opened the cooler to find no Snook, but somebody had dumped two Flounder carcasses and a Black Grouper carcass in the Snook donation chest (guess somebody didn't know how to read). However they did know how to fillet a fish, leaving little to nothing on these carcasses we could scrap, but we need something, anything, as our window of time had been cut in half since our arrival. I go to get a knife out to work some magic, and realize the only knife handy is the one on my key chain.....Strike Two. With the utmost determination, and a dull pocket knife, I was able to get a few pieces of what I can describe as less than optimum baits for us to fish with during the extremely short bite window that was approaching quick.

  The bugs were solid, and the humidity in the air was thick, making the walk out to the end of the inlet grueling and very disheartening, but after the long drive, and the mishaps along the way, we had to make this work somehow or another. Under prepared was an understatement for what we ere experiencing right now, and this became even clearer when we realized that we only had had three leads to fish with in a rock laden war zone, if we were going to pull this off, our luck was going to have to change, as we were now on the clock for the bite time.

 I dropped the first bait on my 4/0 loaded with 60lb mono and an 8ft unlimited class Barret Custom rod, and within two minutes of the bait hitting bottom, I felt that awkward tugging, typical of a Redfish hit. I let it eat for a short moment, set the drag to terminate, engaged the reel, and proceeded to lay the lumber on this fish on the hook set. My violent hook set, was met with an equally violent reaction, and I soon found myself getting drug back and forth on the railing engaged in a brutal tug of war. I would not let the fish take any line, but the creature had other plans in mind. It tried to take me into the rocks, the the pilings, then into the current, I began to believe it was not a redfish at al, but possibly a nice sized stingray, until I saw it rise up in the light of the Eye of the South, and realize it was a legitimate South Florida pig. Jayson got the bridge net ready, and the monster had been beaten. A few quick pics and a hook removal and a quick change of luck, and we were out of the red and back in the green. She was released to fight another day, and we pushed forward to see what we could pile up during our short window of miracle fishing.

  On my next drop I came tight again almost instantly. But this time I was able to manhandle the fish to the surface in a moments time. Jayson was able to maneuver the net into position, and in a matter of minutes the second bull had hit the deck. This guy has lived an interesting life judging by the missing portion of its tail. A couple quick pics, a nice release and we were back in the game again.

Over the next 20 minutes Jayson had a couple of hook-ups and losses along with myself. Until I was able to get another 30lb class fish to the jetty. However the hook pulled out from head shaking before it could be netted. The window was closing, and our one hour bite time was nearing the end, and daylight was approaching quickly. Jayson insisted he fish one more bait before we leave though. and On his final drift he came tight on a nice one on spinning tackle. After a short but belligerent tug of war on braided line, he was able to get this textbook looking redfish to the jetty for a couple of quick shots and a sweet release before we packed up.

 Driving South down the Wilderness road toward home as the first light peered over the distant clouds on the horizon, we had a long haul home smelling like red drum and fermented fish. We were soaked in sweat, riddled with bug bites, and I could feel the facial hair growing on my face. A long miserable sun-rise drive home was not what I was looking forward to after being awake for 24hrs. But knowing we had beat the odds and overcame everything that went wrong to get into some trophy Red fishing made the drive a little less miserable. The light in the sky was peering higher over the clouds, as the Eye of the South was still visible above, illuminating the ocean wilderness road southbound toward home, I rolled down the windows, turned up the radio, and stomped the throttle down a little harder, knowing that sleep would be a little bit easier after our last minute expedition, accompanied by some last minute luck.

Albino Shark Capture

 Yesterday during an outing on the Deerfield Fishing pier, Team Rebel member Cody "Paper Shredder" Davis was involved in landing one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I was snook fishing on Juno pier when Cody called me and said they had a shark hooked up that appeared to be all white in color at a distance, and would try to document it as best he could for further analysis. A short while later he informed me that the mystery shark had in fact been landed, but they were not able to get it onto the pier without harming it, so they popped the line and let it return to its awkward and special life. Here are a few pictures of what was determined to be a 4-5ft albino Black-tip shark, we also have a short video clip of this, and will be attempting to post it onto the site soon, stay tuned.

The Ballad of Bulldacious

   It has been a little while, and just wanted to let everybody know that we are STILL alive and kickin'. We have just relocated our corporate command center further north, and are finally beginning to get into the swing of things in the new shelter that we have affectionately dubbed "The Hammer Dojo".  Brendon, Cody and myself have been entrenched in our new found hobby of wade fishing (more to come soon about this) but luckily during our hiatus we have people like Viktor around that pick-up our slack on the shark front.

  Viktor has just reported back to base camp with a nice haul of fish over the course of a couple of afternoons, and we felt that this warranted a much needed shark report here on the site.

 Viktor contacted me a few days back and said he had the bug to go out and get tight on some toothys, and with recent reports of some nice fish crusing close to shore, he maqde a solid game plan and acted on it accordingly. With only a few afternoon windows to fish before the seas kicked up, they hit the sand with expectations of big sharks and nothing else.

 The first afternoon the bite was good, managing a few nice bites in just a couple of hours in the afternoon. And within a few short hours of easy fishing, they were rewarded with a nice Lemon and Black-tip with a nice shot of a double hook-up to cap off a nice first days fishing.

The second day went pretty much the same as the first, a few hits right before sundown, and a very nic Lemon shark to cap off another decent afternoon of fishing, but with the weather shifting quickly and cold water moving up the coast, they had to act fast if they were going to get a shot at the big fish they were searching for.....

 The surf started to kick up on the finl day of the trip, making it increasingly difficult to replenish baits after they were terrorized by the local black-tips that patrol the troughs in the late evening. Around 6 p.m., they bite they were waiting for came. A slow, cocky pick-up on the long bait, which was a fresh Amberjack head. Viktor harnessed up and reeled tight to set the usually reliable circle hook into the sharks mouth, however this didn't go as planned. After a stout 50yd pull the hook disconnected , and their aspirations for the fish they had come so far for came crashing down in an instant. You could feel everybody spirits instantly drop at the camp, and with only a small section of bait left, reality sank in that the trip may finally be over.

 Instead of packing up and heading home, Viktor made the call to drop the small bait that was left out deep, and hope it staye out long enough that the black-tips menaces would steer clear for another hour or so until sunset and maybe, just maybe, get a shot at another giant before the whistle blew.

 Viktor deployed the raggedy midsection of the Amberjack, and sat back and waited for his hail mary to be answered. An hour had passed, and all had been silent, until the 12/0 finally let out another slow and cocky hit, this time the hook-up was solid and the shark took a strong,hard, long run toward the islands, and he knew he had a shot at what he was hunting for.

 Back and forth for 45minutes, it was a brutal tug of war, with wild head shakes and hearty attempts to throw the hook lodge in her mouth, but resistance was infact futile. This was reassured when the blunt, gray dorsal arose in the first trough, it was the one they had come looking for.....

One of Viktors crew ran out and subdued the beasts tail, and the long and hard fought battle was finally over, and it was time for a couple quick photo op's.

The Bull had been beaten, but her spirits were not, as she turned on a dime and tried to take a quick goodbye snap at Viktor before she went back to binging on the creatures of the surf.

It goes to show, even when you are at your lowest point, unless you have bait in the water, you truly never know what could happen at an given moment. Fish hard till the very last moment, because you never know when Bulldacious could roll through your camp....

Stay tuned, we got more on the chopping block as we speak!!

Beast up!

Team Rebel out!

"Wing and a Prayer"

Sometimes you just get a "sign" randomly that signals to you that you have to go soak a bait, and that's how this story begins. I was gassing up with what little cash I had available at a local gas station, when I saw it, the universal sign of METAL, and I knew I had to call Team Rebels newest metal contributor and spring into action ASAP.

 I called Cody and told him what had happened, and he agreed that we needed to act accordingly  by finding the closest water and rowing baits before the day was gone. So I packed up the gear and met Cody at his house and it was time to rock!

  Obviously, since I was low on the fossil fuels, we decided to throw all the gear into Codys rig and in no time we were finally beach bound in search of what would accept our stingray offering.

 We arrived with some favorable conditions for a change, and were anxious to put baits out to see what would come of it. However, the tide was not in our favor and there was seaweed starting to creep into the trough and our lines, but we were in too deep now to turn around.

 Hours passed as we conversed about who our favorite metal bands, and sang the praises of the band DOWN's guitar player Kirk Windstein and how cavemanish he is. That's when Codys 80 TTS began to light up. Cody has never spent much time shark fishing on the beaches for anything besides black-tips and spinners, but he has been committed since he Team Rebel induction to getting tight on something stout on the sand, and it appeared his chance had finally arrived.

 After about 4 pick ups and drops the spool finally was rolling steady, that's when I told Cody to "lock it down" and let the circle hook engage into the sharks mouth. Without hesitation Cody locked up and line started peeling off the reel, it felt like a decent one. Cody being new to this opted to sit in the sand instead of the more traditional Team Rebel harness while the fish was taking its initial run, and this one had a lot of heart!

The fight lasted about 15 minutes until I saw the JET BLACK dorsal pierce the water in the first trough. It was the unmistakeable sickle we saw cutting across the water all while it was executing some ferocious 180's as it tried to elude capture. However its attempts were futile, as I bum rushed the shark the first opportunity I had. In an instant, Cody had landed his first real beach shark.

  We took two pictures before the hook was cut and I was dragging the angry black hammer back to its watery home, but not before Cody was able to snap this cool picture.

  So far Cody has broken into the Team Rebel ranks while bringing it STRONG to whatever expedition we have embarked on, and if his luck keeps up, something big is lurking on the horizon...........

Until next time....

Team Rebel OUT!

The Thunder Nears.....

 It is upon us! The 3rd annual Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge nears! You better stay tuned over the next couple of weeks and keep checking back here and the official website, because there are some big announcements and updates heading your way, including the new partnership with the Wounded Warrior Porject!! Hell Yeah! Saddle up, because anybody whos anybody is going to be  at the Liashley Crabhouse and Marina on the weekend of May 4-6th for the tournament and the festival that surrounds it!

 Don't forget about the JAWS movie memorabilia exhibit that will be on display, and the little fact that Discovery Channels SHARK WEEK will be on hand filming the entire festival and tournament! So stay tuned for some more awesome updates! Over and out!