Skip to content
Notifications
Clear all

[Sticky] East Coast Shark Club-Woody Woodrum,R.Cavazos & Ed Dwyer

william
(@william)
Member Admin

Woody Woodrum
Angler Preys On Predators Ex-military Man Hooked On Sport Of Catching Sharks
August 28, 1986|By David Scruggs of The Sentinel Staff
MELBOURNE BEACH — Most people are scared to death of sharks, but Woody Woodrum isn't.

Sometimes for days on end he will stand on the beach waiting for one to bite his hook so he can fight it for hours, wear it out and drag it to shore.

He fished for shark through 20 years of military assignments in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Okinawa, France, Germany and Vietnam, and he moved to Melbourne Beach in 1968 because it looked like a good place for fishing, judging from the maps.
Sharks became Woodrum's obsession when he was a 15-year-old soldier in quiet, postwar Japan. He lied about his age so he could enlist.

''We used to go down and surf-fish and hooked three or four shark and they broke the line,'' the 54-year-old Melbourne Beach resident said. ''We got a little heavier equipment and finally caught one, and I thought that was the most fun I ever had.''

But once the fisherman got serious about the sport, he learned about aspects of it that do not offer much reward -- such as shark fishing when shark fishing is best, on winter nights.

Sharks do most of their feeding at night, he said, and during the winter, sharks on the east-central Florida coast come in near the shore to give birth. The cold spray from the nighttime ocean can dampen a desire to fish for shark pretty quickly. So why does he persist? ''I've asked myself that a hundred times,'' he said. ''I say, 'What the hell am I doing down on this damn beach this time of night?' ''

And so almost every day -- not just in winter -- he rises early and goes to the beach. Shark fishermen must fish from shore, so the surf has to be calm enough to enable a fisherman to row a bait-laden boat several hundred yards out to drop off bait and fishing line.

''You pretty much just have to go look at the ocean and say, 'Let's go,' '' Woodrum said.

But ''let's go'' doesn't mean ''let's go shark fishing.''

It means ''let's go catch stingrays and skates in the Indian River to use as bait so we can go shark fishing -- if the ocean isn't too rough by then.'' Too often it is, and working a rowboat through the churning mess is next to impossible, he said.

If everything works out, Woodrum will end up standing on the beach with a fishing rod in his hand, and people will hover around him like sharks, waiting to cut a few steaks off the first beast he catches.

He generally doesn't bother with the steaks, himself. He keeps the jaws. The crabs get the rest.

Then comes burial time, another part of shark fishing that isn't particularly fun. That is when the excitement disappears, along with the steak lovers and the tourists who wanted a picture with a shark.

Not many people, including Woodrum, care much for the sport called ''big hole digging.''

''It gets to the point sometimes when you don't know whether it's all that much fun as you thought it was,'' Woodrum said.

He said he thinks that way a lot as he stands on the beach with his bait in the water. But, he said, ''You can hear that reel click and start singing a thousand times and it's new all over again. It doesn't ever get old.''

Rolando Cavazos

Capt Ed Dwyer
Back in the late 70's and early 80's this group of very hard core shark fisherman often met to catch some of the biggest sharks ever caught from Florida's beaches.From the research I have done I have spoken to people who were involved with the East Coast Shark Club and they had a headquarters of sort on Indianlantic beach it was a cottage on the beach where Rolando Cavazos and his family lived during those years.According to marine biologist Jon Dodrill who currently heads Florida's Artificial reef program says they would get shark specimens from the group for his undregraduate studies in marine biology during those years.

http://www.marconews.com/news/2010/feb/ ... -fatal-at/

The group caught sharks almost every single night behind that cottage on the beach.Just recently on a shark fishing trip to Sebastian Inlet we stopped at Wabasso bait and tackle and saw a picture of Rolando Cavazo's 1300 lb Tiger shark ;it still hangs on the wall after so many years, just ask Mr Parson's the owner to point it out. Speaking of big tiger sharks one of the biggest tigers caught by this i remember back in the 1980's reading about it in a Miami Herald newspaper article.Today Ed Dwyer has become one of the most prestigious charter boat captains out of Port Canaveral Florida.He has pioneered yellowfin tuna fishing the Bahama bank east of Canaveral to a spot called "the other side".The incredible fishery that was discovered by Captain Ed Dwyer has caught on in popularity to the point where a few tournaments to the "other side" are held during each year.Captain Dwyer and his wife Candy have been very helpful in providing us with excellent historical shark fishing stories w pictures of the shark fishing that took place along Brevard county beaches during the 1970's and 80's.In those days the East Coast Shark Club of which Ed Dwyer was a member was very active often catching huge tiger and hammerhead sharks that frequently made the local newspapers.Captain Ed Dwyer is currently (2/2009) having a brand new 65 foot charter boat built in North Carolina to be ready for the spring fishing season.Thanks to Captain Dwyer and his wife Candy for there cooperation with us.


Ed Dwyer with his 12 ft 8 inch tiger shark


The write up in the local newspaper


The write up I saved from the Miami Herald nespaper


Ed Dwyer with the huge tiger shark's jaws

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

Quote
Topic starter Posted : 07/16/2010 11:33 am
Share: