Three anglers were standing in neck-deep water off a beach on the Florida panhandle, being circled by a 12-foot shark—the kind of shark that makes its living attacking swordfish, tuna, and other sharks. It was the next-to-last moment in a beach-fishing adventure none of them will forget, and it ended safely for all of them, including the shark.

On November 12, Travis Lucas and friends Joshua Smith and Ben Brandner caught and released a very large shortfin mako shark from the beach. It’s exceedingly rare to catch a mako from shore; they prefer deep water and the larger prey that live there. This was the first confirmed shore-caught mako at Cape San Blas, about an hour east of Panama City. The shark was released per the rules; harvesting Atlantic mako sharks has been prohibited since 2022 due to overfishing.

Lucas, Smith, and Brandner never expected to catch a mako, let alone one that’s about as big as they get. “We usually just target big species, like bull sharks,” Lucas recalled. A week earlier, they had caught a 12-foot dusky shark and a 13-foot great hammerhead.

The Hometown Sharkers Score Big

The group, “Hometown Sharkers” on their social media, specialize in overnight beach outings.
Lucas was set up with an Okuma Makaira 130 reel spooled with 200-pound Reaction Tackle braid, a 300-pound mono top shot, and a homemade 800-pound leader on a 7-foot Rainshadow rod. The 24/0 circle hook was baited with a chunk of a blacktip shark caught earlier in the day.

Lucas had dropped the bait from a kayak about 1,000 yards offshore at sunset and paddled back to camp. During the evening, “we ended up catching a smaller bull shark on another rod,” he said. After that, it was a calm, cool night on a quiet beach—until it wasn’t.

“We had actually dozed off,” Lucas said. “I woke up to the 130 screaming.” He got into his harness and immediately knew the fish was heavy, perhaps a tiger shark. “It started pulling pretty significant drag pretty effortlessly,” he said.

Ten minutes in, the fish “woke up” and began leaping in the moonlight, “pretty much back-to-back for three or four minutes in one position, and then again in the next,” Lucas said. Eventually, the acrobatics ended. The fish ran toward shore a couple of times, which made life easier for Lucas, and the fight was over in 35 minutes.

As the fish neared the beach, the anglers still didn’t know what they had caught. Maybe a hammerhead, they thought. When it reached the wash, they thought it may have been a great white. When they finally got a light on it, “there was a lot of screaming,” Lucas recalled.

Team Release

“Releasing that fish was one of the most memorable situations I’ve had,” he said. “We realized it was a mako. Josh runs out with the tail rope. I come out with bolt cutters and the hook remover. We get out there, assess the situation, get it unhooked, get the leader off of it. It was about 49 degrees, it was cold.”

Lucas’s wife, Flower, and the other guys’ girlfriends watched and held flashlights from the beach. The group began moving the mako to deeper water to ease its release. “So it’s pitch black outside. We get out past the sandbar, so we know she can swim off. She swims out 10 or 15 feet and comes back at us. She made three full circles around us before thrashing at the surface and then swimming off. It was definitely nerve-wracking.”

The group saw for themselves why makos are sometimes confused with, blue sharks. “They are in every sense of the word ‘blue sharks’,” Lucas said. “When the light hits them they’ll go from deep purple to blue, and it’s a color you’d never expect to see from an animal. It almost seems like it’s a holographic. They’re pretty wild looking. It’s definitely a once in a lifetime fish.”

The post Massive Mako Caught on Florida Beach appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

If you spend any time in the Florida Keys from March to May you know about the hot tarpon fishing around the bridges. Islamorada’s Channel 2 and Channel 5 bridges consistently produce. Near Marathon, the Seven-Mile and Bahia Honda bridges can be packed with boaters, soaking live crabs and silver mullet to hookup. At night time, some anglers cast and jig eel imitations around bridges with success. 

But a second, ever-growing attraction has spliced itself among the tarpon bonanza — hammerhead sharks. What first started years ago as isolated shark encounters have become as regular as the tides. Viral videos show triple-digit tarpon attacked by hammerhead sharks as long as a bay boat. Those videos or real-life experiences used to produce audible gasps, now they generate groans and anger. Boat-side interactions are happening more frequently, so much so that the routine hammerhead encounters have become an issue for anglers and tarpon alike.

Tracking Sharks Movements

Investigators wanted to study the interactions where hammerhead sharks attacked and ate tarpon, known as “depredation,” so they set out to track Florida’s sharks’ movements. An international team of researchers, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, compiled a massive dataset covering the position, migration and interaction of sharks and game fish. The researchers focused on the Florida Keys over a three-year period. In all, the team deployed nearly 300 acoustic receivers and tagged 257 fish (including 73 sharks) with transmitters on bull sharks, hammerheads, tarpon and permit.

Here’s how it worked: Every time a tagged shark or fish swam within range of the receiver, its location was recorded and tagged with the date and time. Using acoustic telemetry gave the team long-needed stats on the migratory, reproductive and feeding patterns of sharks. Then, the team ran their raw data through a unique machine-learning algorithm to model the complex interaction of environmental factors, such as time of year, lunar cycle, water depth and temperature.

“Combining acoustic telemetry and machine learning helped us to answer a host of questions about predators and prey,” said Grace Casselberry, the paper’s other co-lead author and a PhD candidate at UMass Amherst’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Tarpon and permit repeat the same spawning migrations and return to the same spawning grounds, at the same times of year, every year. “[Sharks] seem to remember where and when the tarpon and permit aggregate,” said Casselberry.

That’s no surprise to tarpon anglers who have been outspoken about their increasing encounters with sharks, often in the form of their hooked fish getting chomped.

Bahia Honda’s Hammerhead Sharks

From April 2019 to July 2021, Casselberry was focused on acoustic telemetry. But from April to May in 2019, she conducted a visual survey of hammerhead sharks and tarpon at the Bahia Honda bridges to quantify depredation rates and identify factors that most influence depredation.

The survey spanned 211 hours of fishing, recording 394 hooked fish. A total of 104 fish were observed being landed. Twenty-fish depredations occurred, with 4 post-release mortalities. Any subsurface post-release mortalities were not able to be observed or recorded.

“The average time to land a tarpon was 12.7 minutes,” said Casselberry. “Depredation was most likely to occur after 9.5 minutes; post-release mortality after 9 minutes.”

Casselberry tracked the tides, currents, fight time, number of boaters fishing, number of fish hooked at one time, number of times a tarpon jumped, time of day, and plenty of other variables to try to understand when a hammerhead shark was most likely to attack a tarpon.

“Hammerheads are modifying their use of Bahia Honda in response to tarpon presence,” said Casselberry. “Their daytime presence overlaps with angling pressure. I observed a 15 percent mortality rate [of hooked tarpon].” Casselberry’s tracking data also showed that hammerheads took up residence the longest in the Florida Keys from March to June. Each month saw increased resident hours from hammerheads until a decline occurred in July.  

Potential solutions to hammerhead attacks could be policy or management based, behavior based, or technology based (shark deterrents), said Casselberry. “For anglers, try to use heavier tackle to get that fight time under 9 minutes; be aware that the outgoing tide is when the hammerheads are most likely to be around; or try night fishing when hammerheads aren’t as active.”

Tarpon Numbers Trending Down

A recent UMass Amherst survey received answers from nearly 1,000 anglers and guides who target Atlantic tarpon. Tarpon are not part of any formal stock assessment, so talking to avid anglers is one of the best and only ways to get a pulse on the fishery. Overwhelmingly, respondents answered that the quality of the fishery has declined considerably since the 1970s.

Other results from the survey included:

• On average, guides lost 2 to 7 tarpon per year to sharks over the last five years.
• Respondents perceived water quality and habitat availability as the greatest threat to Atlantic tarpon; restoration efforts should be a top conservation priority.
• Respondents supported regulations that prohibit harvest of tarpon (such as catch-and-release only). 
• Respondents want increased science efforts to understand Atlantic tarpon ecology for conservation solutions.

The post Hammerhead Sharks Versus Tarpon appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Just like northern residents who trek south to vacation in the warmth, great white sharks are moving into Florida’s balmy waters this winter. It happens every year, with heavyweight sharks acting the part of snow birds, visiting from out of town.

According to OCEARCH, a scientific nonprofit that monitors different shark species via fitted tracking devices, white sharks have moved into Florida waters big time, with more likely on the way. The organization revealed via its online Global Shark Tracker that a 12-foot, 4-inch white shark weighing nearly 1,200 pounds was verified off the coast of Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale on Jan. 22.

The shark, named “Ironbound,” was originally captured, measured, and weighed by OCEARCH in 2019 near West Ironbound Island, Nova Scotia. Ironbound was fitted with a Smart Positioning and Temperature (SPOT) tag so it could be monitored and located by OCEARCH after release. SPOT tags produce a location “ping” whenever a shark nears the water’s surface.

So, Southeast Florida boaters, keep a look out for Ironbound, not out of fear but curiosity. OCEARCH points out that there aren’t more sharks along the Atlantic Coast, just more tagged sharks. The organization and its collaborative research team recently published a peer-reviewed paper in the scientific journal Frontiers in Marine Science, providing a comprehensive analysis of the migrations of white sharks in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The study analyzed the movement patterns of 48 tagged white sharks over multiple years and life stages.

Tracking Sharks for Science

A second giant white shark, known as “Maple,” was recently located off Florida’s Panhandle. The 1,264-pound, nearly 12-foot shark pinged on Jan. 24 far offshore the town of Destin. OCEARCH reported, via a Facebook post, that Maple entered the Gulf of Mexico at about the same time in 2022, spending January through May in the area. They’re interested to see if Maple winters again in the Panhandle for the same period.

Farther south, another white shark named “Keji,” measuring 8 feet, 7 inches and weighing 580 pounds, was pinged in the open Gulf of Mexico, northwest of Tampa on Jan. 25. The juvenile male was one of nine sharks tagged off Nova Scotia in 2021.

Other great whites were recently pinged in southeast Atlantic waters tagged by OCEARCH. The concentration centers off the North and South Carolina coasts, with six different sharks revealing their locations in mid to late January. Most sharks are in the 300- to 500-pound range, but a couple are much larger. “Scot,” weighing 1,650 pounds, was verified offshore Wilmington on Jan. 13. A second heavyweight, “Breton,” weighing 1,440 pounds, pinged on Jan. 26 in the same waters.

A Chance to Spot a Great White Shark

Offshore anglers might also notice the great whites moving south this winter, especially into Florida. Each year at this time, there always seems to be a new video of a great white sighting spreading around social media.

The week of Jan. 19, Campbell Keenan, a 12-year-old visitor from Massachusetts, was fishing with his family off Fort Lauderdale when he hooked and boated an 11-foot white shark after a nearly hour-long battle. The shark was tagged and released.

“These sharks are following tuna and marlin going to the Gulf of Mexico to spawn,” said Patrick Rice, science officer at the College of the Florida Keys, to Keys Weekly. “They follow the big migratory species.”

The post Great White Sharks Head to Florida appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Australia is well known as a shark haven, with giants of many species – especially bulls – prowling beach shallows and nearby offshore reefs. But 16-year old isn’t spooked by the toothy predators as many folks are. Instead, he enjoys night fishing for them in Western Australia near Port Hedland Spoilbank beach, reports the United Kingdom’s Daily Star.

After the sun sets when the tide is high, Glasson and a few select pals canoe out 100 yards or so to an area called “Spoilbank basin,” a popular spot for Australian surfers and swimmers. There, Glasson and crew drop baited hooks and lines, then return back to the beach to tend rods and reels connected to the baits.

Glasson and his angling buddies have caught dozens of sharks, mostly heavy bulls.

“We usually take photos and size them, then within a minute we try and get them back in [the water],” he told the Daily Star.

Glasson says the sharks just keep getting bigger.

“The fastest one we’ve pulled in was only a small shark and it (took) about five minutes,” he reports. “But the bigger bull sharks we get now take 30 to 40 minutes to land. We sometimes have our mates hanging off the end of the rod just holding it up helping us fight it.

“I’d rather go out throughout the night instead of staying at home playing games. The adrenaline is going and everyone’s going crazy. Once you land it (a shark), it’s wicked.”

The post A 16-Year-Old Shark Hunter Has Found His Favorite Hobby appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Captain Chip Michalove of Outcast Sportfishing was offshore Hilton Head Island July 12 when he spotted an enormous hammerhead shark.

He tried baiting the massive fish. But the shark was smart and wouldn’t take a baited hook, according to a report in South Carolina’s Island Packet newspaper.

Time and again the shark charged Michalove’s bait, but wouldn’t commit to taking it, according to the report.

Michalove knew the hammerhead was a special fish, easily eclipsing the South Carolina record hammerhead of 588 pounds set in 1989.

So Michalove (a dedicated and experienced sharker) was determined to try catching the half-ton hammerhead the following day while guiding a shark charter with a pair of visiting veteran Virginia anglers, Pete Quartuccio and a buddy. But the wind and waves had come up the morning of July 13, so the anglers had to try sharking an area closer to Hilton Head. At 10:30 a.m., fishing an area only a few miles off Hilton Head Island, the same half-ton hammerhead showed, took a bait, and the fight was on. Quartuccio was on the rod when the massive fish struck.

“She ripped off like a bus, taking 400 yards in about 60 seconds,” Michalove told USA Today.

“I released from the anchor and spun the boat to chase [the shark]. I knew she was going to be enormous, but I didn’t know of the enormity until we got her a little closer and I could see the width.”

It took Quartuccio and his pal about an hour to draw the hammerhead near enough for Michalove to grab the fish. They never considered boating it or bringing it back to weigh and measure.

The shark fight was so brutal, Michalove said, that Quartuccio and his buddy were too tired to pose for photos while the beaten fish was boatside.

“They were so exhausted they could barely stand,” Michalove said. “Pete crashed on the cooler and laid there in exhaustion, and his friend was so tired that I barely convinced him to just hold the camera while I reached over and grabbed the shark’s head for one quick photo.

“I tried to get them to lean over for a picture, but they wouldn’t budge. So I threw a quick tag in the shark, popped the hook and sent her off.”

Their hammerhead catch, while not official because it wasn’t weighed and measured, surely would have topped the current state record fish. However, with two anglers battling the shark, it would not qualify as an IGFA catch.

The IGFA all-tackle hammerhead shark world record is a 1,280-pounder, caught at Boca Grande, Fla. in 2006.

Such massive hammerheads commonly congregate to feed on tarpon during their spring-summer runs in the coastal South. The 1,280-pounder taken off Boca Grande was caught during the Florida tarpon run. Michalove says the same is true off Hilton Head from now through August while tarpon are available for hammerheads to feast on there.

“This fish is probably older than I am and to just to kill it to make a few headlines or to get my name in a record book, isn’t worth it,” Michalove said. “Fifteen years ago, I would’ve thrown a rope around her head and dragged her back to demolish the records. But these sharks have given me a good life and they’re too important to our fishery.

“There’s not even a question that we did the right thing,” said Michalove about releasing the half-ton hammerhead.

The post Goliath 1,000-Pound Great Hammerhead Shark Caught, Released Off Hilton Head Island appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Save the day by switching to alternate inshore targets.

You have better odds of winning the Powerball jackpot than finding perfect conditions every time while out fishing. Bait moves, somebody beats you to a spot, the flats are muddier than the Mississippi River in July, or those yardstick-long snook you found last week are suddenly 20 miles down the coast. When the day starts like this, it’s time to shift gears and take advantage of other less glamorous opportunities.

Black Drum: Soak a quarter blue crab near an oyster bar, or toss a juiced bucktail jig or crustacean fly at those broad black tails waving in the air. What they lack in speed, they make up for in sheer pulling power.

Sheepshead: Although they get somewhat brazen with the spring spawn, trying to sight-cast a sheepie in crystal-clear water any other time is more challenging than a 40-pound permit.

Barracuda: Toss a tube lure or silver casting spoon beyond a ’cuda hovering in a sandy pothole, crank as fast as you can, and hold on once the silver missile launches.

Spanish Mackerel: Run-and-gun action for striking Spanish mackerel is a blast. They’ll empty a spool in a split second, and are suckers for cast or trolled silver spoons or well-placed Clouser and epoxy minnow flies.

Jack Crevalle: One of the toughest fights in the briny pound for pound, jacks use their broad, powerful tail to full advantage. Wolf packs are ravenous, and a bright topwater plug or jerkbait is seldom refused.

Sharks: Many a tarpon trip has been salvaged by pursuing another inshore heavyweight. Lemons, spinners and blacktips top the list of acrobatic shark trophies, and all will gladly slurp down a suspending plug, or bright red or orange streamer fly.

The post Target Alternate Inshore Species for Success appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The nearshore waters off the coast of Southern California spring to life around mid-May as massive schools of bait fish swarm northward from Mexican waters. It’s a moveable feast stalked by gangs of predators, including voracious common thresher sharks weighing anywhere from 60 to 175 pounds.

As they grow, the maturing threshers tend to trickle offshore to live the balance of their lives as pelagic predators. But in the meantime, the smaller-grade fish hang close to shore, pile on the pounds and provide outstanding catch-and-release fishing on light tackle. They’re pure fun, displaying magnificent leaps, amazing strength, blinding speed and supreme agility, which allows these long-tailed sharks to change direction in a split second. To see the incredible jumping ability of these fish, check out our post of a Leaping Thresher Shark Caught on Camera.

“I never imagined these fish would be so much fun,” said my friend Ron Ballanti, after we caught and release 12 threshers before noon last August. “Let’s do this again soon.”

Hook ‘Em Right

Indeed, we’re talking world-class light-tackle fishing, but there’s a caveat here. Threshers stage their spectacular fights only if they’re hooked in the mouth. Unfortunately, foul-hooking threshers commonly occurs because they use their long tails to stun potential prey, often becoming tail-hooked in the process. Some anglers take advantage of this by trolling deep-diving lures, which usually results in a foul-hooked fish—a technique known by the derogatory term snag-and-drag.

Circle Hook Success

The key to minimizing foul-hooked fish—and maximizing the sport—is drifting or slow-trolling live bait such as sardines or small Pacific mackerel, using circle hooks such as a 2/0 to 3/0 Owner Mutu Hybrids. Threshers tend to inhale small, isolated, slow-moving live baits, and the circle hook helps prevent foul-hooking, even if the shark swats at the bait with its tail.

Circle hooks also facilitate catch-and-release fishing and help prevent bite-offs. Threshers have relatively small teeth, so I forgo wire and opt for 130-pound-test fluorocarbon leaders. However, these fish can measure anywhere from 10 to 15 feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and they sometimes roll up in the leader, so I use about 20 to 25 feet of fluoro leader material to prevent the fish from chafing through the leader and reaching main line with their sandpaper-like skin.

I crimp on the hook. A wind-on leader gives you better control of an unpredictable fish when it gets close to the boat. A size-10 lever-drag reel spooled with 50- to 65-pound-test braided line proves more than sufficient for these fish, especially when matched with a 6-foot rod, sporting a medium to medium-light action.

Active Predators

Threshers that gather nearshore in SoCal are active predators that focus on anchovies, grunion and sardines, often working in wolf-pack-like groups, corralling prey into tightly formed schools. Sometimes, they force the bait to the surface, indicated by telltale signs such as terns flittering just above the water. You might also see free-jumping threshers or the quick-slash of their tales as they cleave the bait schools. During quiet mornings on the water, I have even heard the subtle hiss as the tip of that deadly tail scarcely slices the water’s surface.

Threshers don’t seem to mind the green shade of nearshore waters. In my view, these younger fish might even prefer off-color water, which is often a reflection of the rich nutrients that attract forage species. Threshers also possess an affinity for inshore structure spots such as rockpiles, reefs and ledges. More than once I have trolled back and force over such structure and experienced a bite on each pass.

Read Next: Invasion Force

In terms of water depth, I have found threshers from the edge of the surf break out to about a mile off the beach in 50 feet of water. If you don’t see signs at the surface, use your sonar to look for densely packed bait schools deeper in the water column. You might also see the sonar returns of the sharks themselves shadowing the bait.

Fish High and Low

During a fast drift or while slow-trolling in the deeper waters, it pays to stagger lines high and low in the water column. I usually fish three lines, one with a 2-ounce egg sinker, another with an ounce and a third with no weight at all. I use small rubber bands to hold the sinkers in place. Sometimes the fish are feeding deep or in mid-depths, and this technique helps you find them.

Once you do, get ready for wild action as these speedy and high-flying sharks will keep you on your toes. And please practice catch and release, remembering that these fish, even the 150-pounders are still immature and have not yet had a chance to reproduce.

The post Light Tackle Thresher Shark Action in Southern California appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

If you’d like youngsters to get into fishing, there’s no better way to introduce them to the sport than by chartering an experienced, patient captain to catch sharks. Kids find shark fishing fun, a little scary, exhilarating, enlightening and almost always memorable. The most difficult issue can be figuring out who enjoyed a shark trip more: the kids, the parents or the guide.

“When my phone rings with a parent who says, ‘My child would like to catch a shark,’ I get fired up because I want them to have a blast and make a fantastic memory,” Capt. Scott Simpson says. “I want to make a good memory for that boy or girl, whether they’re 7 or 15 years old.”

Simpson, who fishes out of Long Beach, Mississippi, says his area hosts an abundance of small coastal sharks in spring and summer, anywhere from man-made reefs a mile off the beach to barrier islands 12 to 25 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. That means plenty of opportunities for his young customers, many of whom are 8- to 12-year-olds who have never caught a shark.

“They go out not knowing what to expect,” Simpson says. “All of a sudden, it happens: That shark hits and starts pulling out line. You’re there to coach them if they need you. With the first one, I might have to help them click the reel into gear and fight the fish, and they usually do pretty darn good. I think a child is a better listener than a parent.

“After they get the shark in and see it, touch it and take a picture, that second one is more exciting than the first one. They know what to expect, how hard it’s going to pull.”

Lifetime Memories
Best of all for Simpson is when he hears back from the parents of kids who caught their first shark with him. “There’ve been dozens of times where a week or two or a month later, I’ll get a text or email from a customer that their daughter or son is still talking about that shark, and they can’t wait to come back next year,” Simpson says. “That’s what gives me pride in what I do: to make memories for the next generation of fishing men and ladies.”

Happy customers and repeat business also mean a lot to Capt. Billy Bice of St. Simons Island, Georgia. He cites a family that started fishing with him when their son was 8. This past summer, the now-18-year-old and his father fished with Bice for the 10th consecutive year.

One of Bice’s best memories is a trip with a 10- or 12-year-old boy with autism. He started the trip shy and withdrawn, but after catching a shark and then a whiting doubleheader, he was a different person.

“He really came out,” says Bice, a retired educator who specializes in family shark-fishing trips. “He was so proud, his mom told me that he said, ‘I bet you Capt. Billy tells everybody about my catch.’

“Seven-year-olds don’t care what they catch or how many they catch, but if they can catch a shark or a stingray, that is awesome to them. A stingray, a shark and a whiting — a Billy Bee trash-can slam — is big on my boat.

“When they leave me, hopefully they’ve had an experience that’s more than a fishing trip, more than a boat ride; it’s a lifetime memory. If I accomplish that, they’ve gotten their money’s worth and I’ve gotten mine.”

Species Choices
The size of shark they catch doesn’t always matter to kids: A 5-pound bonnethead can generate extreme excitement for a youngster, the same as a 100-pound bull shark.

“One thing about kids is they all love sharks,” says Capt. Dennis Forgione, who fishes his charter boat Free Spool out of North Miami Beach, Florida. Like many captains who take kids shark fishing, Forgione targets a variety of species, although sometimes a lone marauder not on the usual target list shows up unexpectedly.

On one offshore trip, Forgione’s young anglers were catching yellow jacks, yellowtail snapper, kingfish and bonito when a 12-foot hammerhead shark appeared out of nowhere and ate a bonito that had been reeled alongside his boat. His anglers also have caught sandbar, spinner and blacktip sharks offshore, and bonnethead and lemon sharks in Biscayne Bay.

The bay is Forgione’s go-to location when seas kick up offshore. He either anchors and drifts baits back or uses a fishing kite to send his baits out to the channel.

Bice and Simpson put younger kids on small Atlantic sharpnose and finetooth sharks. Teenagers can handle big blacktip and spinner sharks, which can range from 5 to 90 pounds in Mississippi, Simpson says.

“Blacktips and spinners provide line-pulling, rod-bending, drag-screaming, fast-paced action. It’s definitely fun for the entire family,” he adds. “The spinners are great fun for families and kids to catch because they give us a nice visual, acrobatic fight, jumping multiple times.”

Capt. Billy Miller, who fishes out of St. Petersburg, Florida, has put his young anglers on everything from 3-foot-long bonnethead sharks to 13-foot hammerheads in and around Tampa Bay.

“We want it to be fun for everybody,” Miller says. “If we have really young kids, we anchor up over grass, chum with minnows, catch Spanish mackerel and bluefish and trout, and then the sharks move in. Young kids fish with trout poles and can catch bonnetheads. Those are always cool for the kids because they’re not so big that the kids can’t handle them.”

Sometimes, though, it takes a team effort, especially when a big hammerhead or bull shark shows up. “A lot of kids don’t care how many of their buddies help them reel it in, as long as they get it to the boat,” Forgione says. If a shark can’t be kid-handled, captains often leave the rod in the holder and let the child fight the fish without having to support the tackle.

“A lot of times, you have kids who’ve brought a buddy or two with them,” Miller says. “One kid’s holding the rod, one kid’s holding the reel, and one kid’s holding the handle, and they’re having more fun than they know what to do with.”

Picture Perfect
The captains I spoke with pointed out that shark fishing makes for great videos and photos. They’ll bring small sharks in the boat for quick photography, although the definition of small varies.

“I trust sharks about as far as I can throw a 300-pound man,” Simpson says. “If I can put my hand around them, I’ll grab them behind the head with my left hand and might let the kids hold the tail.”

Forgione lets kids touch big sharks held by his mate alongside the boat. Bice brings small sharks into his boat so kids can touch their skin, and he’ll show them the shark’s unique nictitating eyelids. Parents often take photos of the kids holding a Billy Bee shark-release flag while Bice holds the shark.

Miller is more extreme: He brings blacktip sharks weighing 50 to 100 pounds into his boat for a moment.

“We flip them in the boat and take a photo, and people freak out,” Miller says. “They make for beautiful pictures.”

Read Next: 40 Greatest World-Record Catches by Junior Anglers

Because sharks have only cartilage, and not bone, in their bodies, they can bend double and quickly snap at a human finger or foot. So handling is something best left to the pros. In fact, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission suggests anglers leave sharks in the water ­alongside a vessel when taking pictures and releasing the fish.

In addition, state, regional and federal laws govern the harvest of sharks, and permits are required even for recreational fishing in some circumstances. Knowledgeable guides secure the proper paperwork and follow the rules.

However, keeping a shark to eat ranks as the least ­important part of the trip. The real appeal of catching sharks is turning kids into lifelong anglers.

Shark Fishing Nuts and Bolts

Capt. Billy Bice
St. Simons Island, Georgia
912-269-9983
billybeecharters.com
Tackle: Ugly Stik rod, Zebco reel, 2-ounce sliding sinker, plastic bead, swivel, 8 inches of nylon-coated 60-pound steel leader, 4/0 circle hook
Bait: whiting chunk

Capt. Dennis Forgione
North Miami Beach, Florida
305-582-5445
freespoolsportfishing.com
Offshore: Penn Carnage II rod, Penn 30 International reel, 80-pound red SpiderWire braid. Double a section of the main line and slip a swivel over it. Use 12 to 15 inches of 60- or 80-pound mono to tie a 2- to 3-pound sinker to the swivel. Tie a snap swivel onto the end of the main line, then add 20 to 25 feet of 300-pound mono with a crimped end, 6 or 7 feet of No. 12 wire, and a hand-size circle hook.
Inshore: 80-pound mono leader, short piece of No. 9 wire
Bait: small bonito, bonito slab or bonito head for offshore; bonito chunk or live pinfish inshore

Capt. Billy Miller
St. Petersburg, Florida
813-363-9927
captainbillymiller.com
For small sharks: 7½-foot spinning rod, size 20 or 30 reel, 15-pound braid, 2 to 3 feet of 20-pound monofilament leader, long-shank 2/0 mackerel hook or 10 inches of No. 4 wire (38-pound-test), 2/0 J hook
For bigger sharks: 9-foot spinning rod, 4/0 reel, 50-pound braid, 5 feet of seven-strand wire, 9/0 Gamakatsu J hook
Bait: headless menhaden hooked in the tail, Spanish mackerel chunk, bonito (offshore)

Capt. Scott Simpson
Long Beach, Mississippi
228-669-6204
captainscottsimpson.com
Tackle: Medium-heavy, 7-foot 30- to 60-pound rod, Penn Fathom 40LW reel, 50-pound high-viz green monofilament, barrel swivel crimped to 3 feet of plastic-coated seven-strand wire (135-pound-test), 2-ounce egg sinker, crimp, 8/0 J hook Bait: cut mullet or croaker, live pinfish, ladyfish, sand trout, mullet, croaker

It Ain’t Easy When You’re Queasy

Catching sharks can hook youngsters on fishing for life, but seasickness can turn them off, no matter how great the fishing.

“I tell everybody, ‘Listen, it’s really not a rule, but no one’s allowed to get seasick,’” St. Simons Island, Georgia, Capt. Billy Bice says. “I say, ‘Mom, if anybody starts to feel sick, you tell me.’”

Bice keeps ginger ale on his boat for anglers feeling the initial effects of seasickness. If seas are bumpy, he almost always retreats to calmer inshore waters. If even those back rivers and sounds are bad enough to make people sick, he cancels the trip.

Capt. Dennis Forgione fishes offshore of North Miami Beach, Florida, but he quickly heads into the protected waters of Biscayne Bay if conditions start to bother anglers. “If it’s a miserable experience, that kid’s never going to go again,” says Forgione, who always keeps ginger candy on his boat to help with seasickness. “I’ll tell the parents, ‘Hey, look, we’ve got to go in.’ I can always salvage the trip. If I see a kid’s getting sick, I’ll go into the bay, and now they’re awake again and having fun.”

Seasickness is rarely an issue for Capt. Scott Simpson’s anglers, who might fish for sharks 25 miles into the Gulf of Mexico out of Long Beach, Mississippi. Simpson, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, notes that some people can worry themselves sick. “One thing I always tell my customers when they call to schedule a trip is, ‘If you’re thinking about seasickness, then get the patch or the bracelet or take a Dramamine.’ It’s all a mental thing,” Simpson says. “Be a little proactive.”

Like Bice and Forgione, Simpson finds alternatives if seas in the Gulf disturb his anglers. “That’s one thing we’re blessed with here on the Mississippi coast,” he says.

“I can always find an area with some protected water to fish.”

Although many captains provide water and other drinks for their customers, parents should bring plenty of their kids’ favorite beverages and snacks. “It’s amazing how much a little kid will eat,” Bice says, adding that parents should also bring hats for their kids to wear and sunscreen.

The post Shark Fishing With Kids appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

“Andy” is one tough tiger shark.

Tagged in Bermuda by scientists from the Nova Southeastern University’s Guy Harvey Research Institute in 2014, the tiger shark has traveled approximately 37,565 miles off the Atlantic coast of the United States and around Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos. Andy is now the longest-tracked tiger shark on record — and shows no signs of slowing down, as he’s been trekking for more than 1,240 days.

The timeline of his path includes run-ins with freezing temperatures and four hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria.

“We are delighted with how long Andy has reported data, which has tremendous value for us as researchers,” said Mahmood Shivji, the director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and a professor in the Nova Southeastern University’s Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography. “This amazing, nearly three-and-a half-year track is revealing clear repeated patterns in the shark’s migrations between summer and winter.”

More than 150 sharks, including tigers, makos and oceanic whitetips, have been tagged by the Guy Harvey Research Institute in the last decade. The data collected is used to study their migration patterns. Andy and many other GHRI tagged sharks can be followed online in near real-time at www.GHRItracking.org.

“Tracking the migration patterns of sharks, like Andy, for extended periods of time allow us to better understand their behavior and habitat utilization, resulting in better knowledge on how to manage the species,” said Guy Harvey, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation chairman.

The post Tiger Shark “Andy” Breaks Distance Record in Guy Harvey Research Tagging Program appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

With no hint of its presence in the flat-calm Pacific a half-mile or so off Australia’s Evans Head, north of Sydney, a great white shark nearly 500 pounds launched itself right into the small cockpit of Terry Selwood’s 15-foot outboard boat, this past weekend.

The big shark came flying into the boat, smashing into the 73-year-old angler, fishing solo, and sending him sprawling onto the cockpit floor. Though he feared the shark’s pectoral fin had broken his arm, Selwood scrambled onto a gunwale as the frantic monster thrashed wildly, breaking gear.He then managed to reach Marine Rescue New South Wales, which initially expressed disbelief in his report. But when a Marine Rescue boat reached Selwood, they found the shark taking up most of the boat, and removed the bleeding fisherman.

Selwood has been treated and released. In an interview with Australia Broadcasting, Selwood described the incident as a “one-in-a-million shot” and said he’s anxious to get back on the water.

The post Great White Shark Leaps Into Small Boat appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.