10/19/2008 Surf Fishing Report (?) - Fortaleza, Brazil - Jer caught fish!

[Jer]

I tried to post this report much earlier but when editing/resizing the pictures I had to stop to work on Sportfishermen.com stuff and was pretty busy all week.

I have been trying to go fishing for a long time. In 2008, other than last sunday, I went fishing only once on the jetty and for less than 90 minutes (did not catch anything).

The internet is really great. I was looking at this river mouth on Google Maps, located 10-20 miles away from my apartment (I'm clueless). I read a report once several months ago on a brazilian surf fishing forum posted by guy from Rio de Janeiro that fished in that river mouth and had a great time with his son.

I left home around 7:30AM. My in laws picked us up. We stopped in a couple supermarkets to look for bait and ended up buying only some frozen shrimp (harvested from the wild, not farm raised). My tackle box was packed with lures that I wanted to try for the first time and also fishbites and Berkley Gulp!. I've never caught a fish on a lure, but I caught a my biggest catfish on a piece of Gulp! bloodworm.

When we were close to the river we saw something I wasn't expecting. The road was closed by one of these bars they have in parking lots. After stopping the car and talking to a couple locals we decided to go back there and ask them if we could have access. The answer was a very nice "yes" .. at R$3 ($1.50) per person. Sounds good to me. I knew there were several houses in that area used for vacations/weekends by employees of the local electric power company, but didn't think it was closed for guests...

We parked the car close to the river and saw a little "beach" next to the mangrooves, and decided to fish from there instead of fishing from the beach. It was high tide but I had no clue since I didn't look at the tide chart.

I baited a couple circle hooks with shrimp and casted. Caught a crab! Very nice. I wanted to get a picture of the grab but should have backed up to the sand instead of leaving the crab hanging above water, it dropped on the water before my wife managed to get a pic. I caught a fish a bit after that My first ever of that specie. That fish made me very happy. I tried to use cast a sabiki on a 6' rod and that didn't work. The sabiki rig was too long, heheh. Also I walked a few yeards to my right and tried an artificial. Too light lure for the wind, and I wanted to catch something instead of dealing with tangled line all the time.
On the first rod I set up I was using a very light sinker (less than 1oz I think) because I'm not sure of the casting weight of that light surf rod and I'm afraid of breaking it. The current wasn't helping.
I decided to cast a heavier sinker with another rod (the green one). Ahhh, much better.
I tried whole pieces of fishbites for the first time because the fish or crabs were stealing my shrimp. The fishbites didn't work, probably too big pieces for the fish ... and it's really hard to remove the fishbites from the hooks without the use of a tool! My father in law helped me with that. We saw tons of tiny fish attacking the fishbites he threw on the water, cool.

So I decided to only use shrimp and fish for some time before calling it a day.

IT WAS FREAKING HOT and I only used sunscreen after a couple hours there, so I got sunburnt bad. Very smart, eh?

I ended up catching 4 fish and 1 crab total

It was the first time I've ever caught more than 2 saltwater fish in the same trip. All fish were of the same specie. I asked another fisherman I met there and he told me they are locally known as "coró". He also said I could try smaller hooks. Then I saw him cutting up a shrimp in little pieces for his hooks and saw 2 tiny fish he caught plus another fish of the same specie I caught. I hope he was planning to use the fish for bait, and not planning to eat... he will starve unless he spent all day there. But of course I will try smaller hooks another time because I want to catch different species.

I had a great time there and I'm going back next Sunday with my in laws. They loved that place and want me to spend a lot of time fishing. My wife gets tired after a few hours, but I don't blame her. It was too hot and she was bored. Also we need another of the "sunbrellas" (whats the name of the "unbrellas" to protect from the sun? ). I'll buy another one tomorrow for sunday. But my wife took all the pictures and I didn't know she was taking lots of them. Very cool.

2 or 3 fish I caught in a place a few yards away from her so I was running with my rod and the fish for a picture screaming " picture, picture". It was funny for sure.

I'm going to fish on that same river next sunday, but from the beach. I'll arrive there on low tide.

I'm not sure if I'll try articials since my 6' and 6'6" rods can only cast up to 1/2 oz. I may try a 9' telescopic Penn rod.

I cant wait!

WOW, I typed like mad for several minutes. Sorry for the long post

[Jer]

I refered to myself as a 3rd person on my thread title

[bigfish4me]

Way to go Jer...you cant ask for a much better looking place to soak some bait..not sure of the species but next time you get one of them...filet that thing up and send a fillet out there with a little more weight and you should get into some bigger fish...nice to see you got out to wet a line, i hope to see more reports of your success.

[gottaflylee]

Wonderful Jer, I'm so happy for you. Great Report and Pictures, looks like in the first fish picture, you have what we call a "Sand Perch" and the other fish looks like our "Whiteing"...
Keep up the good fishing, the water looks so clear in thoes pictures...cool

[Proheat]

Wow Jer!!...............Looks like paradise!!!

Congrats on your fishing adventure!!
Glad that you got away from the computer for awhile and had some fun!

[gradywhite273]

outstanding jer, great job on the fish, man it looks beautiful down there.

[Sea Draggin]

..not sure of the species but next time you get one of them...filet that thing up and send a fillet out there with a little more weight and you should get into some bigger fish...

Exactly what I was thinking. Give something big enough that the little fish can pick at and make a commotion. Then big boy will come to see what all the fuss is about. Just like grouper fishing.

[Squidnation]

very nice Jer - keep it up.

[SeaBiscuit]

Beautiful fishing spot Jer and congrats on your catch! Your big smile says it all!
Keep fishing and keep posting!
SeaBiscuit

[Tenacious]

Sweet job Jer. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to post.