2011 SFSC Sharker of the Month

Thanks Will for the nice words.Jimmy dean and I will try to post more sharks in the up comming months. Thanks also for the South Florida club Will. .

Congrats to all you guys. You deserve it. Great catches!!!!

Thanks Will, it is an honor! Congrats to all other 2011 sharkers of the month as well!

""""GOOD SHIT""""!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doug takes amazing pictures! all of the sharkers of the month have definitely proved themselves so far this year

Thanks Will, it is an honor! Congrats to all other 2011 sharkers of the month as well!

You should be the frontrunner for this month too for the 9'2" lemon on Kevin's busted tld with the messed up drag..I don't think even Super Dave could pull a stunt like that, I could barely drag it out of the wash

Take that POS to Lehrs asap!

Thanks Will, it is an honor! Congrats to all other 2011 sharkers of the month as well!

You should be the frontrunner for this month too for the 9'2" lemon on Kevin's busted tld with the messed up drag..I don't think even Super Dave could pull a stunt like that, I could barely drag it out of the wash

Take that POS to Lehrs asap!

Yeah that TLD definitely needs to be looked at but it might mess with the luck that it currently brings to the beach!

It's been a very busy and tough year for me so I am late on everything shark club related including selecting the "Sharker of the Month" for each month.Here we have a sharker who always reaches out to the young ones and takes a bunch of them fishing with him every chance he gets .The sharks in this report are not incredibly huge but the HEART Shannon Bustamante displays in taking young kids from all walks of life fishing exults him to a special place.Shannon has not had one of his better shark fishing years but despite that his willingness to reach out to the young ones distinguishes him as our sharker of the month for August 2011.A big congratulations to Shannon Bustamante username(Seaweed the Kahuna)

also The "TAKE A KID FISHING" WINNER OF THE YEAR

AUGUST 2011 SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB SHARKER OF THE MONTH

HIS AUGUST 2011 REPORTS

NUMBER ONE

Sorry, I know i have been away for quite some time. But, as you can see it has clearly been all about the kids. We now see its easy to manage all of them while we are shark fishing so expect alot more posts. On this night me and my girl loaded up the truck with all of the kids and headed to miami beach. We took out 7 rods and believe it or not it was all lady luck. The one bait that she took out with me was the one that landed me my biggest shark in a lifetime out of miami beach. It was 8 foot 6 and estimated 300-350 pound bull shark.

NUMBER TWO

Included in the pictures above are a 9ft hammer head off of palm beach. A 5ft black tip out of miami. Some miami beach marina snapper fishing with the wife. All good wholesome fun!!

For September 2011 our selection for Sharker of the Month was made easier with the fact the person we've selected posted three reports with sharks during the month 9/2/2011,9/9/2011 and 9/24/2011.Luis Cordova (picua)can be found fishing hard most weekends on the keys bridges with JD Fagan and many times his kids are in the mix learning to catch snappers,barracudas and even small sharks.His relentless pursuit of big sharks has led him to some fine catches this year including an 8 foot 7 inch bull at the beginning of this year.Congratulations to Luis Cordova (picua)

SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB'S SEPTEMBER 2011 SHARKER OF THE YEAR

HIS REPORTS (First)

JD and I hit the Keys Bridges again last night. We managed three Sharks. I was able to land two decent Lemon Sharks on my 10/0 and JD got a nice Black Tip. No monster catches but we had some nice catches and we had a bunch of laughs and a great time out there. All the Sharks were released and they swam away strong!!!! There's a link to a video at the bottom.

First Lemon

2nd Lemon

Second

Heded South after my sons soccer game with my two oldest boys. JD got to the bridge earlier but got greeted by a storm. The boys and I hit the marinas and we hit the Tuna Jackpot. Picked up about 10 carcasses and off we went to the bridge. JD caught a Nice Ray. Wish we would have got there earlier as we didn't get too fish that long but the boys had fun cathing a mix of Grunts, Yellow Tails, Pinfish and a Blue Runner. This was their first time on a bridge at night. I got to redeem myself as I missed two Sharks earlier and then got this Black Tip to avoid getting skunked. The Shark swam away good. Thanks for the pics JD. The boys had fun!!!!!!

Third
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First ever shark and alligator combination for winners of "sharker of the month".Both these men are awesome fishermen in there own respect and both of these men made some incredible catches in October 2011 one in the Everglades and the other on a Florida west coast beach.John Gibson distinguishes himself for being one of the very few shark fishermen that hit a beach with the intention of shark fishing without having any bait on hand.John will start up the food chain by cast netting small bait ,then catching a jack.a ladyfish or a mackeral then finally catching the sharks and all DONE WHILE FISHING SOLO......WOW!!! CONGRATULATIONS TO John Gibson of Cape Coral Florida he is one of two fishermen who are the SFSC

OCTOBER 2011 SHARKER OF THE MONTH

HIS STORY

Went out by myself, decent action..

est 7.5-8 ft lemon, 6'10" bull measured..Both sharks released to fight again.

Sometimes the biggest thing caught is not a shark at all like in this instance it's several Gators including a 12 foot 6 inch specimen , an 11ft 10 inch specimen and a 11ft 3 incher.Most fishermen are also hunters some hunt deer,some hunt rabbit.some hunt duck ,,,,,but how many can say they hunt ALLIGATOR and are good at it well shark club member Eddi Espinosa is an integral part of the Lake Worth Sharkers shark fishing team ,he's a Lake Worth pier atendent ,shark fishing nut and a succesful alligator hunter.He is our

OCTOBER 2011 SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB SHARKER OF THE MONTH

His Story

This is not a shark but they feel like one.This is my 1 st. gator on rod & reel 10'ft 3"in









all 3 gator are about 9 to 10 ft long

Second Report

12'6 ft 10/14

12'6 ft 10/14

11ft 10/15

I have the difficult job of selecting an outstanding sharker for each month of the year and some months the winner is clear and other months it becomes more complicated and I have to be diplomatic and spread the joy around.Some months more then one person deserves the distinction such as was the case in November of 2011.Some months the winner is not a likely candidate and other months it's not based on the BIGGEST SHARK CAUGHT but on who best exemplifies our sport ,,who best puts a good face on a very difficult and embattled sport .Mark Resto is a young angler who has outperformed many older anglers and even legends that are part of the South Florida Shark Club and he has done that not by the largest catches but by contribution,time and effort put into writing a story ,taking the pictures ,uploading them it alll takes lots of work and Mark has done it better then anyone else this year.

NOVEMBER 2011 SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB SHARKER OF THE MONTH

MARK RESTO AND JOHN GIBSON

There stories

One man gang says it all that is exactly what John Gibson is a 'one man gang'INCREDIBLE REPORT

After work today I went down to the beach..with all the tourists here lately I’ve been hitting the beach later anyways. But that gives me less time to catch fresh bait. Today I arrived to rough, windy, and chilly conditions. A friend of mine who lives close to where I was fishing was going to meet me down there once he got out of work, but his lady had other plans for him when he got home. The water feels so much cooler now. I brought a King Kong bait from home that I caught last week, cast netted some small mullet, chunked them up and fished for more bait on my spinning rods while getting the shark rods set up. The sun was going down and I didn’t have much time to catch bait..once it gets dark here I seem to mostly catch catfish while surf fishing. All that was biting was small ladyfish so I kept releasing them. Then I managed to get a pretty good sized bluefish.

I rigged up the King Kong bait to the 12/0 and it was pretty interesting trying to get it out in the rough surf in my POS canoe, a good amount of water spilled over the front on the way out and I nearly got rolled on the way back in. It was even nasty 250 yards out. I rigged the blue up to my tld 25 and once I got out about 150 yards I just dropped it there..the current made it feel like I was paddling on a treadmill. Not long after I got back to the beach, right at sunset the Kong bait got picked up. I tightened the drag and reeled tight and it felt like a decent fish, but I stopped him dead in his tracks. It was a tug of war, he wasn’t able to take any drag until he got to the sandbar, then he was able to take just a little. Got him to the shore and it was what I had suspected..a bull shark. I was able to get a good picture thanks to the young couple that watched me fight it.

I still had half of my bait, the bull slid it up the leader. I re-rigged it and ran that back out there and that probably wasn’t a smart move since the wind picked up and the surf got worse..but it paid off. A few hours later I got another run on the 12/0 and my recycled bait. I tightened the drag and reeled tight. The fish didn’t feel big, I thought to myself how was this shark able to put that bait down..it was still about 15 to 18 lbs. Not long after I hooked up on that fish, my TLD with the blue went off. This was a first for me, getting a run while already hooked up when fishing solo. I stuck the 12/0 back in the rod holder and picked up the glowstick and put it on the bottom guide (now you know why you see the pvc buried so deep into the sand in my beach pictures). I ran over to the TLD and hooked up on that fish.

I decided which fish I wanted the most, and the one on the TLD was fighting harder so I fought that fish to the shore as quick as I could. Throughout the fight I kept looking over at my 12/0 and noticed the glow stick got knocked off so that fish was still on. I landed another bull shark, a nice fight on the light tackle. After I released that I ran back over to the 12/0 and the fish was still there, trying to swim along with the strong current. I whipped him quickly, fought him stand up style with no harness on the 12/0. A lemon shark. This time I didn’t get my bait back, and I was out..so unfortunately I had to leave em biting tonight, plus the surf was like a washing machine out there, even though the wind had died down a bit. First shark was a measured 7’5” bull, second was a measured 7’2” bull, and the third shark was an estimated 7 to 7 and a half ft lemon..seen so many lemons this year I didn’t bother to measure it. All 3 sharks successfully released to get bigger.

Mark's story

After a lot of planning, a lucky 3 day weekend, and some anxious waiting, we finally headed southbound for the keys bridges.

Made a checklist...

Rods in hummer: check

Rods out of hummer: check

Rigs on rods: check

The first stop was seven-mile bridge, it was a real shot in the dark this time, there just weren't any sharks that night there. But there were a decent amount of fish if you were fishing for them, but I just went to sleep most of that night.

We tried to tell the fish that it wasn't Halloween yet... but they were already dressed up

17 inch snapper

Those bridge rats are really starting to scare me now...

We had one screaming run on a rigging with mullet and eel for bait, it was Adams fish, the thing was just burning him on the 9/0, almost went to the old bridge and cut him off, but after a while, the 80-100lb southern ray was straight up and down and cut off without harm.

the pictures were no good...

The aftermath of last night. what hit that?

The next morning held out a little more promising...

there were quite a few mackerel out and about during the day time, monster jacks seemed to be everywhere, had cuda, snook, jack, snapper, shark lost a lot of fish. Ended up with 2 rays for bait after deciding whether to call it quits or move to another bridge with more baits.

Who said snappers are only caught on bait

eagle rays were everywhere

how bout' more?

mack attack

With 2 nice sized rays we were wearily set off towards long key with an appetite for destruction (and for breadsticks and fastfood provided by papa johns and wendys )

I started sending out everyone's baits and just as fast as I could send them out they were getting hit, blacktips cruising around every five minutes it was like a pier rat's heaven

Dan lost a shark on the 50 wide so I sent out the midsection of a ray on Adam's duel... soon he was hooked up

this shark wasn't too happy and made a lot of cuts left and right

leverage is important when bridge fishing

as the shark cut fast right, we cut fast left to compensate

CLICK TO WATCH
messing with the video setting for a little

getting closer

and closer

some cool shots

the bull was having a temper tantrum...

The mission down the seawall...

I was shortly behind

fat bull

trying to grab it's dorsal or tail came to be a bad idea... I grabbed its tail and thought... this won't go well, so I let it go

took a few attempts to get the shark on the seawall

when it got to this side of the seawall, the current was insane and Adam could barely hold on to the shark that looked as if it was on a treadmill swimming 30mph...

same shark, different angle

it's hard for me to explain, but the way this shark was wiggling, it wiggled right up the seawall with Adam and I pulling on the leader

we pulled when the shark wasn't helping us and both almost fell backwards as the shark was only skin hooked and the hooks pulled easily out of the shark... just goes to show what will happen when you put 100lbs of drag on your shark if it isn't hooked absolutely perfectly...

This is the picture of moments after the shark was pushed back in. The shark also helped. I considered this shark as very smart. 7.5-8ft very hefty shark, nice catch.

HERE IS A 20 MINUTE VIDEO OF ALMOST THE ENTIRE FIGHT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkT61FuIXX0
It has a few things some people might find funny, others may not catch them

This is when I accidentally pressed the video mode on the camera...

Short clip of the shark

Moments after we scurry back up the seawall, I am gathering up rods around the bridge, reeling in shark rods, and such, and Adam runs towards the 9/0, picks it up and sets hook, then hands the rod to me, the fish just starts dumping me out towards the poles, I started to wonder if it was even a jewfish anymore, but on the 60 or 80lb test I was using, there wasn't much controlling the 100-125lb jewfish.

There was only so many decent pics that could be taken with the lack of light...

hooked up, trying to figure out why the 9/0 looks like a huge reel in this pic

no good...

night vision... still no good.

the tide raising really doesn't help us...

Adam was really the star this trip, with those yellow gloves, leadering all the fish... very experienced with leadering fish from working on the charter boats for years.

and then there was the bass that ate the basketball

the best picture we could get..

congratulation partner

like the golden reel

Thanks for the recognition Will and thanks to JD Fagan who I have spent a lot of time with on the bridges this year. Wether it be taking pics, moving rods out of the way, landing the Shark or whatever, It's always a team effort landing Sharks or Big Fish on the Bridges. Congrats to all that have been recognized this year. There have been so many great catches posted this year. I hope 2012 will be even better. Oh and 2011 isn't over just yet!!!!!

Congrat to all both of ya. Ever since i first fished with mark last year i knew he is going to be one of the greatest fisherman anyone has ever seen way to go mark. Ive never fished with picua but ive seen enought to say he is one of the top dogs in this site congrats to both of ya