This weekend was one for the record books. We had size, we had variety, and we had quantity, quality, and even a rarity!
Friday night we had Dave and Kirk for a truly unforgettable night of shark fishing. Upon their arrival, dead low tide, we sent out a few casted baits and yakked out a whole mackerel, which was quickly picked up by a small Sandbar. This process was repeated a few more times before we started catching on casted gear as well. We noticed that each shark seemed to get a little bigger.. And then it happened, the baitrunner started SCREAMING. Kirk is behind the rod and off we go! Now this is a fish… It walks us quite literally a mile down the beach before we even had hope of seeing it.. Strong runs all the way down and it was not about to give up. Finally, we see the dorsal and confirm it is a huge Sandbar Shark and after a few more runs, Kirk hands off the rod to Dave with his final burst of energy. In just a few minutes after the switch, we are able to get her on the sand! Absolutely beautiful fish!! Now, the walk back begins… When we return, Tyler Contento, who was fishing next to us, starts yelling out. He’s on a good fish with an inexperienced crew (their first time shark fishing) so I run over and grab what ended up being a very respectable Sand Tiger. Another beautiful fish! Things settled down a bit after that, and we returned to the routine.. A few more smaller sharks rounded out the trip, but not before Pat lands an Eagle Ray, which had just recently escaped a shark attack! The guys decided to call it a night after a successful trip.
Early Saturday morning, before sunrise, we started fishing again, it was immediate action on little sharks. Then something different happened… The baitrunner goes off… The hook is set, and immediately the shark is airborne!! The shark breaches 5 or 6 times consecutively, the fight is much more erratic… We already have a good idea what this is, but soon we see the fish… Pale skinned, black tipped fins, and came complete with the Remora and all! This was a New Jersey Blacktip!! Wow!
Soon after, there was a man who started up a conversation with us, he said he never caught a fish in his life… So the next run we got, he found himself behind the rod and can now not only say that he has caught a fish, but that his first fish was a shark!
Saturday night, we had Sean out for his second Apex Anglers experience, and while the insanity of the previous night had calmed down, the small/medium sharks were still ravenous! Halfway through the night, Pat gets a run similar to the Blacktip, when the hook was set, all you could see was whitewater, we had another jumper! As soon as we get the shark close enough to leader, it becomes tangled in another line and pulls the hook before we could get a positive ID. Meanwhile, Sean is landing one after another. It was cast and reel shark fishing, It got to the point where we were only using one rod because anything more would have made a mess. Sean proceeded to catch sharks to his hearts content before finally calling it at 12 sharks. We left them biting and couldn’t have asked for a nicer night.
Overall, we saw close to 40 sharks!
Thank you to all who came out this weekend, it was one to remember for sure! Hope to see you all again soon.