Sharks

The Best of Dr. Ball

outdoorlife-editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:44:39 -0400

It's Shark Week!

KristenKeys — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:24:41 -0400

World Record Shark Gallery: Start here... shark records through the years.

Reader Shots: Breaching shark photos submitted by an Outdoor Life reader.

New World Record Shark: Boca Grande Pass world-record hammerhead from 2007.

Fishing Shark Alley

KristenKeys — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:32:58 -0500

Deadly Fish

GerryBethge — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:39:23 -0500

macho ice fishing

outdoorlife-editor — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:23:11 -0500

Calm Before the Next Storm

outdoorlife-editor — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:00:00 -0400

The weather along the Mid-Atlantic coast seems to stay one step ahead of the rest of the nation's tropical mess. With air temps ranging in the mid-80s, the beautiful weather lured us once again to the water to try our luck in the bountiful waters off Virginia Beach, Virginia.

New World-Record Shark?

outdoorlife-editor — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:26:39 -0400

Once they're hooked, giant hammerheads know where to go. The nightmare monster that ate a live and bleeding 20-lb. stingray bait Capt. Clyde "Bucky" Dennis served up followed the script flawlessly. It was 11:30 am, May 23 at Boca Grande pass, Florida, and an instant after it bit the shark left the pack of tarpon boats where it had lurked trying for an easy grab of hooked 'poon, and roared for deeper water. Five-plus hours later and 12 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, his back and legs battered and hurting, Bucky had the fish alongside.

One Giant Shark

outdoorlife-editor — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Florida anglerlands mammoth hammerhead that should shatter old record by more than 250pounds

Captain Clyde "Bucky" Dennis was alone in his 23-foot flats skiff off of Boca Grande pass along the western coast of Florida when a giant hammerhead snatched the live, bleeding, 20-pound stingray at the end of his line. Immediately the monster began towing the 36-year-old Port Charlotte angle out to sea. It was 11:30 a.m. on May 23.

More than five hours later and 12 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, his back and legs battered and hurting, Dennis pulled the shark alongside his boat. If everything checks out, the beast will have shattered the 24-year-old IGFA great hammerhead record of 991 pounds. Dennis's shark tipped a state-certified truck weigh station scale at 1,280 pounds.

Shortly after his battle began amid a group of boats fishing for tarpon, Dennis's friend Brian Hart jumped into the angler's skiff. Dennis took the fighting chair. Past Boca Grande's second bell buoy, more of his buddies piled on board to help. Larry "Mack" McLean drove the first gaff hook through the dorsal five hours after the fight had started.

"After that first gaff she went ballistic," Dennis says. "That huge tail was really going. She sounded again. We'd tried ten times to get that first gaff in. She wore down in thirty more minutes, and we got a second hook in just behind the right gill slits."

"Then we got the tail rope on," Dennis recalls. "Once you've got that—or a head rope—you've got them locked. Unless you've got a small boat and the shark pulls you under."

That's what almost happened. The anglers tried sliding the shark across the aft deck, but the boat's stern quarter began sinking. Instead, they took nearly three hours to tow it to the marina. There the shark was loaded onto a boat trailer, and the following day it was donated to the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota.

PAGE 12 Arctic Hunt Nabs Proof of Hybrid Polar Grizzlies

PAGE 16 Deer Gun Serves Three Centuries

PAGE 18 Clapton Rocks on Behalf of Hunters

*For more on this story, go to outdoorlife.com/fishing.

FEEDING FRENZY!

outdoorlife-editor — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 20:00:00 -0400

BEFORE ALASKA CANCELLED ITS short-lived commercial salmon shark fishery, purse seiners targeted a huge concentration of the fish in Prince William Sound. They soon swapped their seines for 20-hook long-line sets, however. In places, the sharks were so numerous that dozens of them were sometimes trapped at one time in a net. After considering the effects of a supercharged shark weighing 300 to 700 pounds on nylon mesh, the fishermen wisely opted for hook and line.

Whether caught in a net or hooked on a line, salmon sharks pose all sorts of safety hazards for their captors. When one netter retrieved his set in Prince William Sound during the last legal harvest, a live and very annoyed salmon shark fell free and bounced onto the ship's deck. No sooner had it landed than the fish thrashed its huge tail and began scooting along on its pectoral fins. Jaws snapping, the wriggling shark sent the nearest deck hand running for his life. The man ducked into the wheelhouse and the shark finally slammed to a stop, jammed against the opening by its wide fins.

The fisherman was a friend of Captain Greg Hamm, for whom such incidents were standard fare during his former career as an officer in the Alaska Wildlife Protection Division. Hamm currently runs Alaska Extreme Saltwater Adventures and specializes in sport-fishing for salmon sharks in ways that confound most anglers.

In the past couple of years salmon sharks have become a hot new sport fish in the 49th state, caught primarily on 80- to 130-pound-test tackle using full fighting harnesses. Such is not for Greg Hamm.

FLIES? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING!

With its customized high black aluminum wind plates around the sides back to the helm, Hamm's boat, dubbed “Frankenwhaler,” looks like an attack craft from an early James Bond movie. We had just tied it up at a Cordova fuel dock where a fellow offloading his net asked the usual: “Guys do any good?”

“Yep.”

“Salmon? Halibut?”

“Salmon shark,” we said.

“Big?”

We told him and he seemed duly impressed. Then we added, “On fly rods.” That gave him pause.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his smile blossoming into a belly laugh. “Sure you did.”

We did.

Of course, we were using the 14- and 15-weight outfits any knowledgeable saltwater flyfishermen would use for marlin, tuna and similar beasts. But we hadn't trolled or deep-jigged, as some so-called flyrod catches of salmon sharks are accomplished. We caught our sharks by casting big streamers and stripping them back in. We managed, but it was tough.

Captain Greg had lured Keys tarpon guide and big-fish flyrod expert Jake Jordan and me to his hunting grounds with reports of huge concentrations of sharks. We assumed that somewhere in the great gathering there would be a few of manageable size. Instead, the sharks started at 200 pounds; the largest was big enough to remind Hamm of the one that chased his friend down the deck.

SALMON SLAUGHTER

We first discovered what we were up against after finishing the early morning run from Cordova in the hard blue-white Alaska light. Greg throttled back, slow-motoring us into a huge cove. As we prepared to fish, we saw boils of water bulge up around us as though depth charges had gone off far below. A big fin appeared, followed by several others, until at least a dozen shark dorsals were cutting the slick surface, scribing wandering figure-eights. Hamm looked at us and smiled. Then he pointed to a red-handled knife, its sheath taped to Frankenwhaler's windshield. “In case somebody needs to cut somebody loose,” he said.

We asked Greg about the boils and what the sharks were up to. “Oh, they're eating salmon,” he said. “That's nothing, though. When they get really active they start crashing the surface, maybe even free-jumping and grabbing salmon in the air. This is one of their best ambush spots.”

Good ambush spots, Hamm believes, are areas where wide shallow benches or shelves extend from shore and run alongside. “Shallow” in this part of the Alaskan coast means 80 or 90 feet. The drop-off falls away to 400 feet or so. Many migrating salmon move along the shelves before entering rivers and sharks blast up to grab them as the fish go by. A recent research project seems to bear this theory out. Scientists observed salmon schools hiding in their boat's shadow being attacked by sharks. The fierce creatures boomed up from the depths and blasted through their milling victims.

The shallow underwater structure provides an angler with an advantage. If a shark is hooked on the deep side of the extended shelves it tends to fight there. But it will come to the surface, or near it, far sooner over shallower water, where a fisherman can apply much more effective side pressure with the rod. A big shark sounding in hundreds of feet of water means trouble.

We were on the right side of the drop-off. Greg began his chumming operation by blending a soup from 5-gallon pails of salmon roe and salmon trimmings obtained from a friendly cannery. We hoped to bring in the surface swimmers, but after days of experimentation found that the chum excited the sub-surface fish more quickly.

Whether it was a surface cruiser or a deeper fish turned on by the chum, there was no mistaking the attitude of the first shark to follow the slick. It was hot and came boring directly toward the boat, turning slightly to show white featherings of long gill slits, dark blotches on a stark white belly and a curious little pointy nose. Jake cast the fat, 8-inch-long streamer—a gaudy ringer for a slab of salmon fillet tied by mutual pal and brilliant tier Lenny Moffo of Big Pine Key. No sooner had the streamer touched down than it was engulfed.

Jaws snapping, the wriggling shark sent the nearest deck hand running for his life.

A MYSTERY SOLVED

The shark sizzled into the backing instantly, made several runs, turned three times and was suddenly gone. The 60-pound-test monofilament butt material—not the wire bite tippet—had been cleanly sliced. The next three fish did the same thing to the mono. Was the material bad? This was the same stuff Jake had used successfully on Guatemalan sailfish. We started calling it Guatemalan Go-Away mono, and went up to 100-pound-test stuff.

We had no trouble with the single-strand 44-pound-test wire bite tippet doubled or the 90-pound-test braided Surflon. Nor were our high-density sinking fly lines frayed. The fish I hooked were breaking even the heaviest butt section. Before each break-off there was a signature bumping sensation telegraphed up the line to the rod. These sharks were not spinning and rolling up in the line as many sharks do. Something else was going on.

On one particularly productive day the wind was kicking up whitecaps by noon, which seemed to signal to the sharks that they should descend to 40 to 80 feet below our boat. Greg moved out on the transom extension—a kind of swim platform at water level—to entice sharks to the surface by using a stubby “throw-down” teaser rod baited with a weighted salmon carcass fixed to a shiny hookless jig. The sharks came up hot and ready to eat anything that looked chewy.

Within seconds, another surface melee erupted. Beyond the boat, in open water, the sharks created white-foam explosions as they rolled from the water in their efforts to catch silver salmon. Some of these the sharks caught in mid-leap. Twice we saw a very large shark with a wicked gleam in its eyes chasing its smaller brethren, mere 300-pounders, around on the surface. Creepy stuff, but exciting.

With Jake again tight to a fish, Greg went through his normal routine of fast and nifty boat handling. Keeping the shark in the 90-foot shallows was vital. Greg kept moving the boat toward the drop-off, so the shark naturally wanted to move in the opposite direction. Finally it surfaced and we saw the bright Dacron sleeve covering the fly line-leader butt connection near the fish's dorsal. We thought it might have been foul-hooked, but no. Working the rod and boat brought the line around and we saw the fish was mouth-hooked. Then the shark turned and the leader passed under one pectoral fin, coming up and back toward the sweeping tail.

Jake immediately felt the familiar banging sensation we'd felt earlier each time just before being cut off. But this time, we were ready. We had surmised that when a hooked shark made fast course changes on us, our lines would hang on either the long pectoral or high dorsal fin, positioning the leader butt so that the beating tail would cut through it like a scimitar. This time, though, Jake's fast rod manipulation and Greg's expert boat handling freed the leader from beneath the fin. Soon Jake had the leader in the guides, which qualified it as a legal catch. The salmon shark was easily 350 pounds. Greg grabbed the leader and the thrashing fish released itself. You don't get many streamers back when you're fishing for sharks.

Jake's second catch topped 200 pounds. Jake had by then switched to Greg's 12-weight rod and backed down the drag. When Jake felt the dreaded banging of the shark's tail, he and Greg knew exactly what to do. The fish never had a chance. And so it went. As long as the fight stayed on the shelf, an angler stood a reasonable chance of success.

NO GUARANTEES

I wasn't so lucky when I hooked a big shark too near the drop-off on the last day. At first the fish fought near the top and, after two long runs, I was able to retrieve all the backing and most of the fly line. I was beginning to feel pretty pleased with myself when the fish slashed away faster than Greg could maneuver the boat. The shark raced over the edge of the drop-off and then turned down into the inky depths, where it sounded more than 400 feet below us. It took many long, arm-numbing minutes to pull the shark back up.

The fish made a few more quick runs and finally performed an acute-angle turn at the boat that would have done Dale Jr. proud. I immediately felt that horrible banging of the tail, and the shark was gone. A quick back-off of the drag might not have helped in that case, though it worked well enough on smaller sharks to satisfy us that it is essential to keep a taut leader away from the shark's tail.

Sometimes the shark will win anyway, especially if it grows bored with the fight before it's worn out and decides to kick in its afterburners. When the big ones leave like that, all teeth and muscle, it's not such a bad thing.

Try Your Luck?

Salmon shark specialist Greg Hamm can be reached at 907-424-5853; alaskaextreme saltwater@yahoo.com. The best fishing for salmon sharks begins around the first of July and can extend into September, depending on the weather.

A Fast Eating Machine

Salmon sharks are in the mackerel shark family, which includes makos and great whites. Salmon sharks have a higher body temperature than other sharks and are able to elevate it to 24.5 degrees above that of surrounding water. This enables them to withstand colder waters. They are among the swiftest of fish, able to put on bursts of speed in excess of 50 miles per hour.

Commercial fishermen dislike the sharks because of the damage they inflict to nets and gear. Scientists estimate that salmon sharks take between 12 and 25 percent of the typical salmon run. If bled and dressed immediately, salmon sharks are delicious. Not surprisingly, they taste sort of like salmon.

Sharks Of The Parismina Capsized in a tarpon-fishing paradise where danger lurked below the surface

outdoorlife-editor — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Chilo Martinez lives in the little seaside village of Parismina on Costa Caribbean coast. He always has. Martinez is a fishing guide at Rio Parismina Lodge, which specializes in tarpon and exotic freshwater species and is right across the river from where he grew up. He fishes privately, too, though not for sport. He also has a passion for hunting the surrounding rain forest for wild pigs, rogue crocodiles or anything else that threatens the little farms set back from the lagoons and rivers of this country.

On the water Chilo is the guy you'd want in charge if a tarpon jumped into your boat. You'd also want him on your side in a San Jose bar fight. I watched recently as the man, well into his 40s, took the end of a derelict commercial net from the hands of two sporting clients struggling to bring the mesh into his boat. Without speaking, Chilo pinwheeled in yards of dead-weight net hand over hand as if it were kite string. His motions were swift and sure, almost mechanical. As he stared into the water, it may be that he was reliving the nightmare of his past.

FERTILE WATERS

Central American rivers, like rivers in the United States, flush out debris from far inland. Curious items drift by en route to the sea--whole trees, banana bunches, the occasional dead cow. The river outlets where this motley flotsam spews into the ocean contain a rich stew of nutrients that attract small and large fish, including hammerhead and bull sharks. In looks alone, their eyes set on T-stalks protruding from their heads, hammerhead sharks are grotesque, scary creatures. But a unique trait makes bull sharks potentially more dangerous: These saltwater creatures can survive in fresh water. Stocky and broad-snouted, with high-sailing dorsals, bulls freely enter freshwater rivers. In Central America they have been known to swim more than 100 miles up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua, where they've killed unsuspecting bathers wading near shore. If you hook a tarpon at the mouth of one of these rivers, there's a good chance you'll lose it to a shark.

The river outlets on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast are marked by high surf and treacherous cross currents. During the 1970s, camps here fished their clients from small aluminum skiffs, and on days when the surf was down, guides ran out to fish tarpon in the Caribbean Sea. The tarpon schools seemed endless at times, and everyone wanted to fish there. It wasn't until Rio Parismina Lodge started running 21-foot center-console boats, however, that fishermen could count on consistently reaching the ocean, and it's still a white-knuckle ride. Some days it can't be done at all. Before the coming of the big boats, skiff fishermen at other camps pandered to their guides' machismo and tempted them to run the outlets when conditions were bad with promises of big tips. Over the years fishermen and their guides were lost when the small boats sank in surf and undertow. But not all the fishermen whose skiffs swamped in the unpredictable waters here died by drowning.

A RISKY RUN

On the village side of the Parismina River outlet the gray sand beach is cluttered with driftwood--huge logs, whole trees with interlocking branches bleached like bones from the sun. Buzzards with their obscene naked heads hop awkwardly on the sand in search of decaying fish or animal matter. Higher up on the headland a makeshift driftwood fence corrals a small herd of horses; it was erected in hopes of keeping them safe from jaguars patrolling the rain forest perimeter. Chilo Martinez was 17 when his father made the decision to run the outlet in a dugout canoe with two male friends.

When the surf was down, villagers often used their long, locally hewn dugouts to run the river mouth and travel the coast, and in this case the senior Martinez's decision was made for good reason. His wife, Chilo's mother, was ill in the clinic of Puerto Limon, a coastal town south of Parismina. It's possible to reach Limon through connecting waterways upriver, but the trip is long and Martinez had received word to come at once. His wife was in serious condition.

The sky was gray and the wind and surf were building when the elder Martinez and his two friends pushed their boat into the river. They made it halfway out through the breakers before the dugout swamped. The canoe filled with water, losing its resilient flexibility. Caught between the cross-running waves and the incoming surf, it broke in two. Chilo's father swam for shore, believing his friends were with him. Clawing through undertow and stumbling to his feet, he turned to see the other men still clinging to the pieces of the dugout. Some of the villagers had been watching and now ran for help, whether for rope or another dugout is not known. The senior Martinez did not wait. He turned back to the water and began swimming to his friends. The bull sharks hit him inside the big surf.

The first shark to attack stopped, dorsal high, closing down with that horrible side-to-side, tearing shudder. The others bore in instantly, crazing the surface, and the surrounding water turned brown with blood. From shore a woman's high, keening voice rose over the sound of surf, screaming to the village men, "Shark lines, who has shark lines?"

Those who had them responded, hauling the heavy, big-hooked lines from the village while the woman continued to scream. Now she was calling for chickens, and other women and men of the village collected the fowl, killing them or not, running them to the shore. The men with the shark lines impaled whole chickens on their hooks and hurled them to the inlet, where the sharks still swam in quick excitement, dorsals slicing the water inside the breakers and beyond.

A mother's greatest agony must be witnessing the death of her child. This woman--Martinez's mother, Chilo's grandmother-endured just that. With rage overtaking shock and pain, she ordered the fishermen again. "Let them eat; don't set the hooks," she pleaded. "Let them swallow, let them eat..."

A few of the chickens cast into the water fell from the hooks and the sharks snapped at them, their excited feeding now becoming a frenzy. In moments they discovered the baits still fast to the hooks and took them. Groups of men held each line as though queuing for some macabre tug of war. As each shark was hooked, the men began a slow march away from the water, young Chilo among them, pulling the thrashing and twisting sharks toward shore.

SWEPT AWAY

Ironically, cross currents had carried the two men who clung to the dugout's remains through the surf and south along the beach. They were miraculously unharmed. Some of the villagers ran to help them, pulling them through the undertow to safety. At the inlet the hooked sharks were dragged through the wet sand, heavy bodies arching, jaws snapping like living traps seeking anything on which to close. The fishermen clubbed and shot them. Seven sharks were taken; when they were opened, most of the remains of Chilo's father were recovered.

A pyre was built from the driftwood, the people of the village gathering near as the man was cremated on the beach. The old salt-impregnated wood burned sometimes blue, flames fanning high in the wind. Chilo's mother died one month later.

More than 30 years have passed since that terrible day. You wonder what stays inside a person who has lived through such horror. Today Chilo is a quiet man of hard pragmatism and reserved watchfulness. Only during the chase--times when his boat crests a swell and rolling tarpon are sighted, or when he steps into the living kaleidoscope of the rain forest to hunt--can you see excitement in his expression.

Though Martinez waged no obvious vendetta after his father's horrible death, I would not want to be a shark that encroached upon anything he was doing. I last saw him, quiet as always, taking a skiff from the lodge across the river to the village. Across the flat, moonlit water, the wake scribed a sickle shape--a giant question mark, the man and boat winking out of sight like the dot at the base of that punctuation. Downriver something large and unseen broke the surface, only once. Even the jungle was still.

The Deadly Sea Creatures of Costa Rica

BARRACUDA Hooked barracudas sometimes explode in a surprise launch boatside. Holding one by its gill cover is okay unless your hand slips--a sure back entry into the fish's tooth-studded mouth.

PORTUGUESE MAN-O-WAR This jellyfish produces painful, occasionally fatal stings with its 100-foot tentacles. Swimmers are most at risk, especially on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, but stinger-decorated fishing lines pack a wallop.

HAMMERHEAD SHARK Scary-looking and as numerous as the bull shark, this maneater patrols river mouths and surf lines as well as offshore. It will take any fish you hook unless you fight it fast.

TARPON A target game-fish species of Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, the high-leaping silver king can jump in your boat, smashing your tackle and your bones. But you didn't come all this way for bream fishing.

CROCODILE American crocodiles dwell in brackish water. Growing more than 20 feet long, they love pigs, dogs and monkeys. A good way to meet one is to dangle a dead fish up a jungle stream.