winter shark fishing

Apollo beach power plant

what do you catch there

Black tips, a couple people told me last winter they seen bulls and hammers

ok i guess thats as much fin as we are going to be having this winter

first couple weeks of november u can catch sum black drum and fillet them and use them as chum by hanging them off the north side of the pier on an in coming tide. You will know when the bulls are around because they will eat the chum right off the rope, or u will see them on top of the water. Thats when u put one of the fillets on your hook no weight just cable and hook and throw your bait off the side within seconds u should have a bull on if not two or three we actually have had a triple header by doing this at the saint petersburg pier

In Florida you can catch sharks year round you just have to learn to fish your particular area.Observe the movement of bait schools and watch the water temps --this will determine where the sharks are.Talk to the local shark fisherman at or near the spots you plan to fish ,learn as much as possible by calling the piers and bait shops and just plain old detective work will get you into the fish.
I will say that when the tempature is dropping it is not the time to target the sharks (from my personal expierience)
I would much rather fish when the tempature has been warmer for a few days and before the severe cold fronts hit like they do in January or February when the water dips to 65 degrees or less.Look for the sharks when the water temps are at the high end.Sharks most of the time will turn off and move into warmer waters when a strong front arrives.We are always learning new fisheries in new areas and sometimes what is true in one area won't be true in another.For example Ernie Polk and his crew are catching Mako sharks in the dead of winter up around the Panhandle so this proves that Makos are affected differently then non pelagic species like the bull and lemons .Hope that helps.Check this out .

viewtopic.php?f=74&t=1018

MOVED THIS THREAD TO "HOW TO CATCH THE MONSTERS" SECTION and gave it a sticky since winter approaches and this topic is very useful

thanks will i guess i need to start doing my research. im hoping i can still hook into a big bull or possibly a hammer before winter starts.

The best way to research is to put a bait out. A diffrent fish swims during the winter. Big duskys, Tigers and the occasional Mako. Sometimes its slower but the fish is bigger. Ya never know for shure unless ya fish. Good luck.

thanks will i guess i need to start doing my research. im hoping i can still hook into a big bull or possibly a hammer before winter starts.

Apollo beach power plant

i didnt know you can fish the power plant. can you fish there at night?

I'm a couple hours south of St. Pete but we normally catch sandbars and blacktips in the winter down here. If we get a warming trend which happens a couple times each winter, then sometimes we will get a lone lemon or bull. Will is right though..if the temps are dropping, you're best bet is to load up on bait and wait for it to warm up before putting it out.

This one is from February of 2006..double header!

Not sure if the sandbars are in that area but they could be a cool challenge. They hit some parts of the Fl coast in Winter, maybe others will chime in on that one.

From our expierience on both west and east coast the sandbars certainly make there appearance in the winter ,as do the blacktips and even an occasional dusky .The hammers, bulls and lemons are caught year round but less in the colder months.We've caught some huge hammers in the middle of winter and even hoolked some monsters we could not stop so they are certainly on the east coast in winter. In the 70's and 80's there were some big dusky's caught from west coast piers up and down the coast ;much bigger then the ones we would catch on the east coast .I'm talking 10 to 13 foot duskies up to 800 lbs but the funny thing is I'ts very hard to find folks with pictures of those huge fish.They were not caught that often but they did run extra large until the longline boats almost wiped them out.Like Ernie mentioned many times in the winter you have to fish many times to catch a decent sized fish but when you do they are often oversized monsters.Good luck.

Last year I ran into quite a few sandbar sharks at the end of November-December until the freeze came. I have seen decent sized ones cruise within spitting distance of the shoreline and I have seen them swim into inlet entrances at low tide in water so shallow I don't know how they didn't beach themselves. They appear to have a taste for black drum and are pretty decent fighters for their size.

Come down to venice, we get all kinds of sharks in the winter. Big bulls and a few huge hammers.