shark story 1

Sharks have become one of the most popular fish to catch in Florida. Sharks have not gotten this much attention since Jaws.
And catch and release shark fishing is pushing Tarpon as the number one past time, Tarpon are beautiful and seeing a 150 pound fish jump 6 feet out of the water, is awesome but outside of a busted finger or nose,

Yes tarpon break a lot of noses when people are trying to release them a quick lunge and pow Tarpon head butt to human face, Tarpon wins, But if you want to talk primal and scary we talk Sharks, not only is it unreal to catch a 300 maybe 600 pound critter it is an adrenaline rush, And then you try to get the hook out and now remember the head butt thing? Well think about getting head butted or French kissed by an 8 foot bull shark.
But how to get to that point,

well the new laws require circle hooks which is stupid, in my opinion.
But lets get into it.

The first mistake most people make is they use too big of hooks and bait, Yes for many of the black tips and sharp nose sharks a 4/0 hook is more then good. I am talking about sharks less then 5 foot long. And the rods and reels they use are way too big, First the mouth of an average black tip is about with out really extending about 3 inches high and 4 inches wide as an opening. So lets say you are using a 6 inch chunk of bait you would get lots of hits but few if any hook-ups. So if you are getting hits but no sharks make your hook, leader and bait much smaller, lets say closer to a golf ball size rather than a Tennis ball size. And a 10 to 20 pound class spinning reel with a 3 or 4000 size reel 20 pound braided line or 12 pound mono is more then good. And for leader, I use 40ish pound steel. Remember this is for Sharks less than 5 foot.

Now I always have one line my first line out with a float or bobber and the bait about 3 ½ feet below the float so I can cast it. That is my back right rood holder, and cover near the surface. My second line is a free line no weight or float the weight of the leader, hook and bait is enough to take the bait close to the bottom, the reason a free line works is the tide. With normal tide flow the bait goes to the bottom and then the water/tide pressure against the line will lift the bait off the bottom and then allow it to settle again picture a Bull whip as the whip is lifted it curls up like a wave which will lift the tip of the whip and the water will do the same thing to your line and bait so it is not just sitting on the bottom.
If the tide is very slow I will put that bait under a float about 1 foot off the bottom, So in 14 foot of water I set the float at 12 foot. Now of course you can not cast this just set it off the side of the boat and feed the line out to get it 80 feet away from the boat. Now both of these lines are smaller rigs with light duty spinning tackle,

If I want to put out another line I up size a bit 12/0 or larger hooks and 100 pound test steel leader or more and big chunks of bait. The size of two fist or more and on the line here which is 50 pound test or more and heavy rods , I place a heavy sinker as I will cast them out at a 45 degree angle to the side and back of the boat so they stay away from my other lines. You will most times get hit on the smaller lines with smaller baits first, but after the smaller lines quit getting hit wait as in about 20 minutes, those big lines are going to start screaming out. The main predator of small sharks is Big Sharks. Once the smaller sharks start feeding and fighting on your line, the gets the attention of the big sharks and when they show up the small ones haul they soon to be eaten butts out of there and oh yeah there’s your bait,
SO enjoy the Smaller sharks on the light Snook/ red fish rods that is when they are fun but have your big rods with big baits waiting for the mack daddy, monster kick your butt, oh my stomach hurts sharks to show up.
Have Fun Fishin Frank