Beautiful ‘beach weather’ greeted over 400 fishermen Saturday morning as they lined the beachfront of South Padre Island during the second annual KOA World’s Largest Surf Fishing Tournament and Beach Cleanup. Last February, the event established a Guinness World Record with 415 participants. The 2008 effort pushed that mark to 466, establishing a new record for the second straight year in the process.

The highlight of the day for the more than 200 spectators outside of Fish Bones Grill & Pier was seeing the 92-pound blacktip shark brought in by Fred Calderas of Zapata. That fish was good enough to claim the overall title for 2008. Winning the largest adult whiting category was Andy Kazukewicz, while  Ron Vencil took home the pompano honors. In the junior angler category, David Camarillo won the whiting category and Joel Casas won the ‘other’ category with a 3.81 pound redfish. In the small fry division, Jorge Tobar won both the whiting and pompano categories and Napoleon Almaraz won the other category.

Participants also removed a container from of trash and debris from South Padre Island beaches. Last year’s event accounted for 4,500 pounds of trash coming off the beach. Although the official weight of this year’s haul won’t be known until later this week, event organizers believe they probably doubled that effort.