Haven't posted a report on here in a good while.. I lost alot of my pictures of sharks we caught this winter and am working on getting them back from a friend, but in the mean time I figured I'd write up a report with the stuff I do have. This report runs back all the way to late fall of last year through now.
About a year ago my Dad and I were lucky enough to buy an awesome boat. We had both wanted a solid center console for a long time, and we finally pulled the trigger on an old Potter Built 23' SeaCraft. From fishing the inlets and sounds for tarpon, sharks, redfish, and jacks, to running offshore for bottom fish and other more pelagic species this boat was just what we needed.
Around late november, the bull redfish that we usually catch off the beaches and piers migrate to some of the nearshore reefs about 10 miles offshore. These fish can be extremely fun to catch offshore. Once you locate the school using a fishfinder, anything dropped down into it is crushed immediately. We have caught these reds on everything from cut bait, bucktails, alien jigs, chicken gizzards, and even soft plastics.
On one of the bull red trips we decided to anchor up and drop some shark baits out. After catching a few bull reds, the rods were silent for a while. Eventually one of our rods with a chunk of bluefish gets drilled. After fighting what we thought was a sandtiger for 20 minutes or so, we were extremely surprised when we saw the armored plates of a sturgeon. This was probably the coolest looking fish I have ever personally seen. They look like something out of Jurassic Park. Knowing how endangered these fish are, we were skeptical about even bringing it into the boat, but we did. After two quick pics we released it and it shot back down into the reef.
We made a few trips down to the Dina pier this winter as well. I only have pics from one of the trips where we landed two sandbars. This particular trip was brutally cold and none of us wanted to leave our sleeping bags when the rods went off.. especially for the second shark which ate around 6 am. Both of these sharks were caught on sheepshead.
Pickle with another sandbar caught on the back end of a jack.
Ging with a monster 10.1 lb sheepshead.
We made our annual trip to Palm Beach a month later this year hoping to dodge some of the blacktips in hopes of being able to land some of the bigger sharks. We didn't have much luck. Just a couple jacks, a nice cuda, and a lemon on casted gear.
While we were cast netting mullet to take shrimp boat sharking, cam pulled these two up in the net.
After catching some mullet we rode out behind some of the shrimp boats and caught two nice blacktips, a nice spinner, and abunch of blacknoses.
We were able to load up on pogies that day to use for chum also.
A few days later we went back out with original plans to troll a few wrecks in search of bonito or cudas. After trolling for a few hours with no luck we headed back in and put out some baits behind the shrimpers. Since we had only planned on trolling that day, our gear was not up to par for these sharks. All we had was one normal shrimper rig and then alot of little live bait kingfish rigs. None the less we caught multiple blacknoses, a nice blacktip, touched leader on a 7ft ish scalloped hammer, and fought another hammer that was much bigger for almost an hour before it tailwhipped the mainline.
After seeing those two hammerheads we decided to go back out the next afternoon with the normal shark gear. We decided that we would go anchor at one of the wrecks and chum for sharks and maybe catch a cobia if we were lucky. On the ride out we saw two free swimming hammers. One was about 6ft and the other maybe 7.5ft. After anchoring on the wreck, I started up a nice chum slick using some old rotten jacks and bonito we had. After I got the slick going I floated back a chunk of bonito on my 50w and before I could walk to the front of the boat for a drink she started singing. After a fun fight we had this cool scalloped hammer boat side. We put a tape on it, but since it was a bit rough we could never get the shark straight. The tape read 8'6" but it was probably closer to 9'. This was the first hammer I have ever landed... and I know it's not off the beach, but it was still pretty cool.
After we took these pics she shot right out of our hands with no reviving needed.
A few minutes later a mixed school of blue runners, jack crevalle, and bluefish swam into our slick. After catching some on gotchas we floated out one of the jacks live. Less than 5 minutes after we floated the jack out, the 50 was bent to the grip screaming like a speedmaster hooked up to a smoker kingfish. After stripping close to 100 yards the shark dropped the bait. We reeled the jack (which was still alive) back to the boat to find kinked wire and small tooth marks in the jack. We put out another live jack after that but got no more hits from the sharks. As we were about to pack up, I went to shake the chumline one last time and noticed two fat cobia right in our prop. We let back a blue runner and the cobe ate it immediately.
It really sucks that we had to release such a nice cobia due to the bogus new state law in Georgia.
That's it for now. I hope to be posting some more as the spring continues and summer begins.
"It's all about the presentation"
Damn, you guys been busy!
Excellent report.
Here fishy fishy fishy.....
Catch a fish or catch a buzz!
Nice catches. It looks like you had lots of fun!