Jaws, Jaws and more Jaws

Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water…

Well I don’t know how ferocious these creatures are to humans (I’ve seen some Pics though) but I will certainly think twice about jumping in the water this coming year. I’ve been swimming in the Atlantic Ocean from Ocean City since I was a little kid but as I age my appreciation for the ocean deepens with every year.

3 or 4 years ago my father, my two boys and myself took a nice little tuna trip out of Ocean City during one of the bluefin tuna runs. We fished from the “Little Eagle” a 30-foot Ryborunner owned and operated by my father. Before we set our sites on our Tuna we decided to stop a little short, about 25 miles out, and try for a couple of big bluefish.

Well it didn’t take us long and our 6-rod spread was tapped out, with all the rods bent over screaming with 10 to 15 pound bluefish. We only had 6 rods out because that was all we could send out before we ran over the school of bluefish.

My boys made pretty short work of the blues except the last fish that was up in the “Rocket launcher” that had dumped over half its spool with a big bluefish. I set my oldest boy up with the task of regaining what seemed to be miles of mono back onto the reel. He finally got the fish about 100 yards behind the boat and it surface, thrashing around on top. As we watched the thrashing blue, it seemed the white water around the thrashing got larger and my boy’s rod dumped down then went slack and he said the fish got off.

Well he was pretty beat and I told him just to pull the line in because we were going to go out a little farther to find the tuna. As the “Lure” got close to the boat I noticed the head of a large bluefish still attached to the hook, but the body…well it was dearly departed. My boys looked at the head and it didn’t take them long to put the “Pieces together”….Shark!!!! and a decent size looking at the remains.

Off to the tuna grounds we go…

We made it offshore about 35 miles and the previous fishing reports indicated a strong bite in the area just a day before and once I deployed the second line, we were already hooked up with our Bluefin Tuna. My boy Jake pulled in his first Tuna, about a 60 pounder.

Still kinda in shock from the earlier theft of the bluefish body, my boys wanted to give sharking a try, so with our 1 bluefin tuna tag filled, sounded like a good choice to me, lets ride, so we went back to the area we caught the HEADFISH.

I cut up our bluefish we caught earlier, put some fillets on the shark rigs, put them out and started the chum line of blood and blue. We had a pretty good slick going and I put three blue carcasses over attached to a rope dangling over the side of the boat. As I was cutting up the chum I looked into our chum line and this enormous head came out of the deep and was heading for the three dangling carcasses. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I went with knife toward the rope holding the carcasses but it seemed to late, the fish was there, and it was huge. I yelled something to the effect of “HOLY SH@#” and my oldest boy started yelling Great White, GREAT WHITE”!!

Folks this thing was absolutely huge, our boat is 30 foot and if it wasn’t as long as the boat it was just a couple inches short. Luckily the fish turned away from the side of the boat and decided not to eat the “Little Eagle”. The fish just vanished after coming to the top, checking us out then disappearing into the deep as quickly as it came. My younger boy said he didn’t want to shark fish anymore.

Well the weather was looking to increase for the worse anyway, so we headed to the barn with quite a adventure behind us.

Curious as to what kind of shark we saw, I put together a Photo line-up of the usual suspects and we all pointed out the Tiger Shark. Research indicates these things can reach up to 30 feet in length and 3000 pounds, so they say anyway, well I can certainly agree with that little tidbit of info.

Well luckily those toothy creatures like to live and feed offshore…Right?

Rich Watts, Jason Cooper and friends have a different view on that and here is a little of their beach adventure.

These guys spent two days catching and releasing all sorts of sharks right off the beach, RIGHT OFF THE BEACH.

Enjoy your swim folks…just saying