SGS mid summer report Tigers, Lemons, etc
I've been putting this report off for a good while, but now i finally have some time to sit down a write it. This summer has been a good one for the south georgia sharkers crew. We've caught multiple tigers off of the beaches this year as well as some nice lemons. As always I'll start from where our last report left off and work my way forwards.
Ill start with this little trip we took in the jon boat to catch some monster bonnetheads. We caught 3 real big ones.
We have caught a few bonnets over the Georgia state record, and multiple over the world record length.
A few weeks ago Kyle and Cam were fishing with local legend Robert Fountain. They hit the beach and fountain yakked out his tiagra 80 with a sharpnose for bait. Kyle and Cam offered him a seat, but fountain adamantly told them it wouldnt take long. A short while later, fountain was hooked up to something big. The shark was smokin his tiagra 80... Kyle called me when i was in bed and told me they were hooked up to a real nice fish.. I was thinking either a big tiger, or a giant foul hooked lemon. A good while later they got the fish in.. it was a huge lemon hooked in the chin. They had no tape, so they measured it with the rod. This fish was in the 10' range.. an absolute monster lemon.
note the size of the sharpnose over by Fountain's foot compared to the lemon.
about a week before hand down at the jetty we hooked a real big shark on a bonito head. It destroyed our smaller gear and eventually broke us off in the rocks.. We think this was the same fish. Note the gamakatsu circle in the corner of the mouth.. this is the hook we use at the jetties for bull reds and smaller sharks.
Next is a real nice daytime lemon James caught while fishing solo. He saw some of his friends down the beach and flagged them down to help land, photo, and release this healthy lemon.
Went offshore one day and had a heck of a bait haul..
We hit the beach that evening with fresh cudas and bonitos.
Got this small lemon that night as well as a bite mark in my cuda bait right in between the two hooks.
A few days later Patrick and Gil went out in the boat. They saw the shark on the fishfinder down about 10 ft off the bottom. Pat dropped him a jack and he inhaled it. This shark was a 10' scalloped hammer.. i dont have pics of the actual fish, but i do have a video. just not sure how to post a video.
pat getting railed.
I was on a family vacation when i got a txt from Kyle telling me they had caught the first beach tiger of the year. The beach where we fish is incredibly shallow, so we werent really expecting to catch a tiger here. It was a nice surprise. There is a little story behind this tiger. Kyle and Josh, aka pickle, were fishing. Pickle had out a huge bait. It was a portion of a blacktip that he had caught a few days before hand that died on the hook. He had out the back half on the blacktip and something picked it up. He hooked it and it was dumping him. As kyle was harnessing him up, Pickles other rod with a big aj head went off. Kyle ran over and hooked the fish. Eventually Pickles big fish threw the hook, but kyle was still hooked up. The smaller one ended up being the tiger. 7'4"
A few days later Patrick, Rett, and Luckett were fishing. Pat caught a nice lemon in the 7' range.
A few days later we were back at the beach again, We caught a 6'6" lemon as well as a 7'9" lemon. I also caught a big 80 lb ray on my 12/0... it ate a huge bonita.. go figure.
Our buddy Will Barnes recently got into sharking.. Pat sold him his old 6/0 and he has been hitting the beach some. On his second or third trip he caught this cool tiger in the pouring rain. Beginners luck lol.
A few nights after that we were on the beach fishing again. Kyles 80 went on a nice slow roll. He hit it and the fish started to take some line on 30 lbs of drag. We knew this was a good fish, and kyle immediately called it to be a tiger. I was a little skeptical, until i saw the classic spotted tail shoot up in the wash. Ging and I ran out and swooped the big tiger right in. Some locals watched us catch this fish, and they loved it. Not a single negative comment... at least some people are cool about sharks. Got a measurement on this one as well. 8'9"
A couple days later, Andrew, Bennett, and myself made a day trip down to Fernandina. We arrived to see beautiful green water and a very clean small surf. We saw a bunch of cownoses swimming around the pier, but they were deep. I think we managed to snag 6. We immediately put them out. We made long drops, and as i lowered down the baits foot by foot, all of our baits were sitting in 21-28 feet of water. Alot different than our 7' depths in GA, only an hour north of dina..
I had a good feeling, and soon after my 12 slacked up and i knew there was a fish on. I skull drug a 4' blacktip in, didnt take any pics because phone had a temp warning.. i quickly rigged another cownose and sent it out far again.
A short while later a huge rain cell moved in, forcing us under the roofed area about 40 yards from our rods. Bennett ran down mid storm to check the rods and he noticed my 12/0 and Andrews 10/0 were slack. We ran down there and reeled tight and both knew we had fish on. From up on the pier these two smaller tigers fought decent for their size. This was a special moment for me and Andrew, we had a double header on and it was both of our first tigers.
I got mine in first and Bennett and I ran down to release him and take pics. Using Troy's method for hooksets the fish was hooked perfectly in the corner of the mouth.
Wish we could have gotten better pics, but bennett did a little swimming with his phone while he was leadering the fish.
I wanted to get a pic of both of the tigers together, but i didnt want to kill the fish. I swam mine out and off she went. I ran back over to the base of the pier to leader Andrews. We got his in, dehooked it, took a few pics, and off she went.
Later that afternoon i yakked out a small butterfly ray on my 12/0 and caught another shark. ended up being a 4ft blacknose. didnt take any pics of this one either.
Heres a nice 8' tiger caught offshore on a live sharpnose.
Here's Barnes with a nice finetooth on casted gear, as well as Gil and Rett with two nice rays.
In the midst of all the tigers and big lemons, "the ogden" manages to land this HUGE 7'11" sandbar on a 6/0.
yesterday, Kyle and Colby were on the pier. It was hot. They got two blacktips up to the base of the pier only to lose them on the walk to the beach. They got pics of one.
Heres colby hooked up to his tipper.
They also caught a massive ray. Amigo was down on the pier fishing casted baits as usual, he hooked this huge ray and 15 minutes in just gave the rod to kyle to finish off.. 45 minutes later they had this massive ray on the deck.
Thats all I have for now.. thanks for reading. Hope to post some more stuff soon.
"It's all about the presentation"
Great write up. Some solid tigers and lemons you guys put on the sand
Team Kraken MD->FL
Awesome report!
Here fishy fishy fishy.....
Catch a fish or catch a buzz!
Great write-up ,great pictures with all types of sharks,fish and on different platforms.WOW!!! Thanks --got you a sticky and my vote for one of the best reports of 2015 .
SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB -President SFSC-Founding Member est 1983 SFSC-Website Administrator BIG HAMMER SHARK TOURNAMENT -Founder Rene Memorial Sharkathon -Founder NMFS Shark Tagger
Awesome Report Guys!!! You guys fish hard!!!
You guys are killing it, keep it up!
Just an average fisherman.
Way to go guys .You guys are hitting it big time.
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