How do I catch a shark off the shore?

[beetlebailey1977]

Bull sharks are everywhere.......

[Gus]

Cipriano,

Just wanted to make sure you are up to date on the Tropical Storm Outlook.

Below you will find the plot for Tropical Storm Don.

If you decide to stay, this could be some of the best Surf Fishing that can be had on this part of the gulf.
Leading up to the storm and right after its passage. Also you won't find Better shell hunting then you get right after a Tropical Storm passage.

I was thinking about coming down Monday to fish.

Please let me know what your plans are.

-gus

[stickbender]

     
     Cipriano, get some bonita for bait.  They bleed well, and leave a nice oily scent trail.  Gus, I kinda thought bull sharks were universal.  They can be caught just off of a shallow, where the water gets deeper.  Good luck.

                                                                  Wayne

[stickbender]

     Yeah, Eddie I had friends that would do that.  No thank you, not me.  What I was trying to say in my other post, was that people would be surprised to see how many sharks are swimming in and around people while they are wading in the water.  A friend of mine use fly,and would  take me up, and you could see them in close to shore where people were swimming and wading.  Oh speaking of sharkfishermen, when I was about 20 or so some Friends and I were up around Hobe Sound swimming, and we noticed a guy had come down to the beach, and was surf fishing.  Ok.  Uh... a little later we noticed a big float floating among us, an we dove under and saw it had line, and big chunk of Bonita on it!  Speaking of A@#$#%!!  Well we got out of the water, and told the guy what we thought of him.  Didn't bother him a bit.  The main problem was that there were families there also.  So we warned them about the idiot not far from them.

                                                             Wayne

[mullet]

 Wayne, it seems like every year the mullet migration starts on the East coast, usually when the water is full of tourist, all the local news channels show aerial footage of all our good friends from up north swimming with all their new friends.

[hillbilly61]

 Tie your balloon to a life saver candy. Tie the life saver to the line. Let the current, tide, wind, take it out. The life saver will melt and drop the rig (if the shark don't get it first) Very effective.

[Gus]

You bet stickbender,

You can catch just about anything from the surf... if the conditions are right.
I grew up on Bolivar Peninsula back in the days before they banned Gill Netting. My family had a license to harvest Speckled Trout.
While the adults were pulling the trout out of the net I was pushing the big sharks and saltwater gar back into the water and reviving them.

The biggest ones that stayed in the net averaged eight to ten feet long, Sharks and Gar.
The Real BIG ones just left BIG holes in the net.
Most folks that go to the beach have no idea who they are swimming with.

Black Tips are my favorite, they eat good and are good looking sharks to my eye.
Don't care for Bull Sharks. They can't be trusted, and I don't like eating them.

Bank fishing is ok, done it most of my life.
But I love the freedom of having a boat.
The Boat provides a modicum of confort and I don't have to fight the bull sharks over my trout and redfish. 

-gus

[stickbender]

     Yeah Gus, I don't trust Bull Sharks either.  I used to wade with my Dad, and Relatives in the intra coastal when I was a kid fishing for snook, and trout, and we would on occasion see spinner sharks surface near us, but never paid them any attention,  Our main concern was sliding our feet across the bottom, to scoot the sting rays out of the way.  But I don't wade any more.  Too many Bull sharks now.  I will fish from shore, or from a boat now.   They are bad on the West Coast of Fla.  I don't even like to wade to far from shore at the beach, with my metal detector now.  I was reading about a diver off of the California coast, who was diving an old wreck, and had recovered some gold coins, but each time he would dive it, he was approached by a Great White, and the second time he lost a flipper to it, and took that as a sign to skip that wreck.  He theorized that it was his metal Doctor, that was emitting frequencies that resembled fish in distress.  I have become a lot more cautious, ...... ok,  ......  I have become quite the scaredy cat in my later years.

                                                                                       Wayne

[Gus]

I hear ya Wayne,

Done lost all the body parts that I can do without...
Hope to carry the rest of me to my final reward.

Man I do love me some gold coins though...   
And I hear White Sharks taste like Chicken. 

-gus

[criveraville]

Lots of excelent info. Thank you. Mullet they kayak their bait out around here, but no kayak. That would be fun. I am going to try the ballon and starkist idea. And elderly lady caught a small hammerhead today with a dead shrimp.. Then she told me she had caught one yesterday.

Gus and Sterling thank you for looking out for my family and I. It's greatly apreciated! Looks like we lucked out and just got a bit of rain.

Diego caught a stingray. I cleaned it and we are gonna eat it. I salvaged some skin, but did an aweful job of it.. Uggg.

Couldn't hardly belive that dead shrimp is $4 a pound!!! Seriously!!!

Mullet, that's a sick group of folks fishing like that. The question is, how do you even come to formulate that as being a good idea? Did they catch anything with the kittens?

I also guess I don't have an apropriate shark rig. But for blacktips, I am good. Sterling still trying to make it down your way. Gracias amigo!

Cipriano

[jham]

The shark that I saw was the only one I have seen do that, but it was really perfect conditions for it. It was cruising a small beach that has a lot of rocks that is right beside the pier on Saint Simons Island, here in Ga. the water was so shallow its fin was breaking the water. right off of that beach is a drop off to about 80 ft of water. There is no swimming there because of the drop off and rip tides, but lots of people do walk into the water a little ways. If the water had been a little deeper we would have never known it was there. I just stood there and watched as it went around me, it was within a foot of me a couple of times.

[skyarrow]

Np cip I'm working a half day today and will be at church tomarrow morning so let me know if and when y'all want to make a trip to Victoria just text or call me

[criveraville]

jham that's a cool story for sure.

I drove and met Sterling last night. The lad let me borrow his shark set up and made me a shark leader. Super nice guy. I got to shoot his bow and that thing zings arrows.  So then this morning we get to the beach. I catching mullet and putting them in the bucket and I have the 12ft long rod standing at atention. Well a lady next to us asked my wife what I was fishing for. Sharks my wife said. The lady then had all the folk nearby all worked up and said I couldn't "attrack" sharks with all the familis fishing and swimming all around us. She convince my wife to drop Diego and I off and go further down th beach. So Diego and I get dropped of. My wife drive further down the beach with my cast net. The lady then while I as setting up dumped my mullet out in the ocean and said I shouldn't be fishing with mullet with all the families and children nearby.

At this point I was disgusted and Diego and I just walks back to camp.. Uggg...   I did cast it with about a pound of mullet o. It and I might have castes the bait 20 yrds...

Cipriano

[jham]

Thats the main reason I do most of my surf fishing at night, all the tourists are either in bed or in a bar. I dont like crowds anyway so I avoid them as much as I can because of stupidity such as that. Im not sure about there, but if anyone said something similar to me, I would just point out that this area is something like the worlds second largest shark breeding grounds... Think we are behind Australia. If most people knew half of what was swimming around them they would never get in a bathtub again, much less the ocean! Stingrays, jelly fish, sharks, all kinds of stuff that is painful if not always deadly.

[skyarrow]

Dang cip that lady was mean to y'all. I still wouldhave fished there and she wouldn't have touched my bait but it's all good like I sed do it dusk and dawn and for longer fishing time do it at night your set up for the smaller sharks so if you do hook a big one say 8 ft and larger itl break your  line and nexttime keep your bait in a small cooler with ice it will keep it fresher and people willthink it's a soda cooler so there les app to try to dump it  if they still gripe at you fish off that peer you were telling me about and at nite don't wade to far out in the surfe since the bigones actually do come into feed later in the day ttyl and GL amigo


Sterling