I think it was Rene who asked ...
Just got back last night from a four day trip to The Texas Coast and Padre Island. I'm still catching up on emails, but I saw the thread a couple of days ago on Saltwater cleanup. Felt sure that someone would give my answer, but just realized noone did. When we're down camping on the beach and fishing the surf, the sand and salt manage to get into everything. Theres always at elast a 10-15 mile wind driving the sand, and sometimes we have to SWIM to get to the first sandbar and the fish breaking just outside of there. Everything gets soaked and sanded pretty well. I've sen reels lockup before we're even through, usually with a fish on. Someone said run your reel under a faucet. I'd argue against that. The running water just drives the sand deeper in. We tend to fill a bucket at the beach, or the sink back home and soak the whole reel for a
while. Back home, before you put the reel away, I'll strip the whole line off, backing and all, into the fresh water,, taking care to get it into nice loops. After a bit, pull it out and let it dry a couple days. Clean and re-grease the reel and wind it all back on. As the line comes onto the reel, I use glide or some other cleaner to prep the line for the next trip.
For those of you who never been, Padre island is a 100 mile long barrier island on the far south Texas coast, broken about 60 miles down by a set of jetties and a pass. Its interesting fishing, running the beach in 4X4s looking for working birds, breaking fish, or structure. Then fishing the jetty at the end and working back. 22 people on the outing with my group (Austin Fly Fishers) and lots more people there bu no real crowding. We go this time of year because there are severl different migrations of baitfish migrating through the
surf and drawing in the big boys. But the wind and surf this year were brutal, not much big was willing to come into the shore and get beaten up for lunch. I had plenty of small stuff, but nothing to brag about. Only two fish worth bragging about in the whole party - a three foot shark and a four foot tarpon at the jetty. Oh well, next year we're going again and next month we're going offshore off south padre.
Jack
Austin
