Long Awaited Reprieve

As a guide and hardcore angler, I regularly deal with a multitude of factors which affect the productivity of my outings. While success surely doesn't depend on every single variable lining up favorably, it always helps to have at least a few things properly aligned. This year, for months on end, an absolute onslaught of unpredictable conditions hampered our ability to target fish effectively. It's been a historic run of extremes.

Temperatures, both hot and cold, along with prolonged winds and persistent drought conditions have all taken a toll on our efforts. The summer months usually provide the backdrop for the year's best angling activity along the coast, but in 2023, surf conditions ranked among the toughest seen in decades at the start of the hottest season. Later, just as all hope seemed lost, we were granted a reprieve in the bad weather patterns, when our surf action finally improved dramatically in mid-August.

From the end of July and on into August, unusually cool water temperatures greeted us in the morning surf. After the wind blew onshore extremely hard throughout June and July, a strong current pattern developed. This pattern is commonly known as a cold-water upwelling; during this year's event, we witnessed water temperatures in the 70s on many days.

The well-accepted explanation for the upwelling phenomenon indicates cool water shows up in the shallows because it's pushed from greater depths onto the edge of the coast by strong southerly winds. Along the western Gulf Coast, from Padre Island well south into Mexico, deep waters lie just outside a narrow shelf extending out from land. When strong winds blow for weeks or months without a break, a dominating, defining current skirts the coast, sucking up the cooler water offshore and sending it toward the beach. Daily observations of the sea surface temperatures show exactly where these upwellings occur in real-time.

Often, the cool waves washing onshore look brown and murky. For several hundred yards off the beach, the water looked ugly and muddy most of the summer. Things turned downright dicey and bleak for several weeks, during what's normally our prime catching time. Then, when August arrived, things took a turn for the better.

When this happened, I came across something interesting while driving off the beach one calm morning. In the tide line, I noticed something floating in the water along the break. Because I didn't recognize it immediately, I stopped to look closer and learned the creature was a rarely seen species of octopus, a blanket octopus. This one had likely drifted in from the depths with the cool, upwelling water.

Until that point, the only decent sharks caught in the surf all summer had been the rare dusky sharks. Texas anglers only encounter this species during the cold-water events of summer. Because this year's unprecedented event lingered for over two months, much longer than the ones of the past, more dusky sharks were caught from the Texas surf than in perhaps all previous years combined, making 2023 truly the Year of the Dusky for shark fishermen.

By mid-August, I was experiencing spectacular action on my charters. The winds generally calmed, and while the waves ran quiet and clear, the water remained cool for a couple more weeks. On one of my charters, Eric Weeks, Nicole Espinoza and I had an epic day indeed, releasing five large dusky sharks reaching almost 11' in length. In addition, we landed and released a great hammerhead measuring close to 12'.

With the hammers phasing back in, we knew the cool water was starting to pull back out. And with the return of warmer water, the window for the duskys was closing. Before the pane shut for good, I wanted to tangle with at least a couple more, since these are among the rarest sharks encountered along our beaches.

On the next charter after Eric and Nicole's, the Todd crew experienced a dusky double, hooking two of the rare beasts simultaneously, during daylight hours. Jonathan landed his largest shark ever, at 8'5", while Colby caught and released an amazing 10'5" specimen. While I feel I didn't maximize all my opportunities, I did end up releasing seven awesome dusky sharks this summer. To provide perspective, that's likely more than the total number landed in Texas prior to 2015.

Along about then, conditions became more typical for the time of year. Clear, warm water pushed onto the beach for the first time all summer. On Padre Island National Seashore, during my next charter, we landed our first tiger of the month. Anthony Argumaniz took credit, subduing an amazing 11'5" tiger at night. On the next trip with John Street and young Jordan Hooten, we managed to beach an 11-footer during the daytime.

Tropical storm Harold then made direct landfall on the middle portion of PINS, pushing high tides in and cleaning the beach, but leaving the water somewhat dirty in its wake. Once we resumed fishing, we verified what we had predicted; the storm restructured the offshore currents and completely eliminated any residual signs of the cold-water upwelling. On the very next charter after Idalia made landfall in Florida, Colten Balentine landed and released his largest catch ever, a 10' great hammerhead. Twice during this trip I measured the water temperature at the uncomfortably hot value of 90°, a big change from the cool temperatures felt earlier in the summer.

Everything now seems truly back on track after such a prolonged period of upheaval and turmoil in the fishing conditions. Thankfully, through persistence and hard work, I was finally rewarded when conditions turned prime. This proves the value of playing the long game. In fishing, when the going gets tough for long enough, better days always lie ahead.