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Sharking at 20 Fathoms

By Lenny Rudow

            What explodes out of the water like a ton of TNT, bites down with an estimated 18-tons of pressure per square inch, and eats 20-pound bluefish for a snack? Mako shark—and if you want to take on one of these beasts mano-a-mano, run from any Atlantic region port from Virginia to New York this spring, and head for 20 fathoms.

Shark Attack!

            The 20 Fathom Fingers, just a hair over 20 miles from Ocean City and 30 miles from Indian River, is an excellent example of a place for late spring/early summer sharking. If history proves any indicator, shark will be on the feed here from late May through June. About a week after they show up here they’ll appear off the Jersey coast, and soon after off of New York. You can expect mako to be on the menu so long as the water temperatures are near or above 60-degrees and bluefish—one of these shark’s favorite foods—are in the area. Beyond this point they’re still a possibility, but are more scattered and harder to target. You’ll also encounter threshers at the 20 Fathom Fingers during this time frame, and this is another species that’s good on the table and is thus considered a prize catch. Blue shark, tigers, duskies, and a number of other species can also show up in your chum slick, but since these aren’t good to eat, should be released with care.

            The 20 fathom line has “fingers” up and down the coast, where the bottom slopes from the upper 80’s and lower 90’s to the 120’s and 130’s, then back up again, and down again, forming trench-like areas that create unique currents and attract fish. Glimpse at a chart, and you should clearly make out these features. You’ll want to either drift across fingers, or anchor on one of the sharp edges along the 20-fathom line. In either case, make sure you allow a mile of distance, between yourself and other sharkers. There’s plenty of good bottom in the ocean, and no reason to crowd one another out.

            Whether you decide to drift or anchor, you’ll want to determine the direction of the current before setting up. This is a critical component to sharking, according to shark specialist Capt. Mark Sampson, of the Fish Finder, a full-time sharker with over 30 years of experience and author of the new book, Modern Sharking (available at http://www.geareduppublications.com).

According to Sampson, anglers should always consider three things: where the sharks should be in relation to bottom contours; which direction the current will take the chum; and where the boat must be so that the chum will flow across the area where the sharks should be holding. Sampson also says that many anglers don’t pay enough attention to how their chum line is disbursed in relation to the direction of the boat’s drift.

“To better understand where a chumline goes as it leaves their boat, anglers must first consider a few basics about ocean currents,” he said. “Despite how it may appear from the deck of a boat, currents do not necessarily follow the wind. A sustained wind may push the first couple feet of the ocean's surface in the direction the wind is heading, but below that depth the true current might be heading in an entirely different direction, and this is the current that will dictate where the chum will ultimately go. Anglers should also know that, depending upon where they are fishing, currents may or may not be directly affected by tidal flows. So, if a current is not flowing in a direction favorable to their fishing efforts, there's no guarantee it'll change directions within the next six hours. To figure out how that chum line will be moving, mark the boat’s position on a chart, draw an arrow through it that represents the direction of the wind (and therefore the boat), then draw three or four perpendicular lines from the wind line out in the direction the current is heading. These lines will indicate which way the chum is actually heading as it leaves the boat, and from which direction the sharks will be coming from. By plotting the boat and the chum’s travel paths in this fashion, anglers should be able to properly choose starting points for their drift.”

Smells Like Fish

            Chum itself is, of course, a critical component of sharking. Bunker chum (sold in many bait shops) works, as does mackerel chum. If you can grind your own chum, any fish from the tuna clan will create a slick that mako have trouble resisting. Sampson’s preference for top chum choices in the Mid-Atlantic area includes tuna, false albacore, bonito, mackerel, and bluefish, in that order.

            Whichever type of chum you’re using, it’s imperative to make sure the flow is steady, but not overzealous. You want to attract the sharks—not feed them. Some anglers will spoon over chum bit by bit, while others will hang a mesh bag or bucket of chum over the side. Most sharpies, however, opt for a frozen chum bucket with some holes in the sides or lid, which will release a steady flow of chum as it melts.

What you use for bait is just as important as the chum you’re doling out, and possibly even more imperative. Bunker and mackerel are common store-bought baits and some people think a mammal’s meat is good shark bait. But pros like Sampson prefer giving the shark exactly what they want to feed on.

“Any chunk of meat in the sea could potentially become a meal for a shark, but forget the stories about fishing with baby pigs, road kills, and the neighbor’s cat. When it comes to shark bait, fishermen have the option of fish or squid and that’s about it,” he says. “Fresh fish should be the number-one choice of every shark fisherman, and if fresh is not available, properly frozen fish of certain species can be a good second choice. I never freeze bluefish or menhaden, but bonito, false albacore and mackerel routinely find their way into my freezer so that they’re ready to use on days when fresh bait is not available. Live baits can work great for sharks, too—the commotion they produce as they struggle on the line can be just the ticket to entice an otherwise finicky or hesitant shark to get fired-up and decide to eat. Live baits can be as large as 12 pound bluefish, or as small as four inch menhaden or little pencil-eels. Depending upon the season and location, live baits may be readily available to buy or catch–or they may be totally unavailable. While buying, catching, and keeping live-bait can create major problems, there are also many occasions when sharkers can easily catch live bait out of their chum lines or off the bottom directly under their boat. Anglers should look for such opportunities and be ready and willing to capitalize on them whenever they come along. Around the 20 Fathom Fingers, for example, early season anglers often have an abundance of bluefish available to them right in their very own chum slicks. Bluefish are a primary food source for makos and are quickly devoured by most other species of sharks as well.”

Tackling the Challenge

            One thing you must remember about mako: when they feel the sting of a hook, they’ll often jump and/or spin. That means you’ll need special rigging to keep the fish on the line. Most savvy sharkers use a short length of single-strand wire in the 200 to 300 pound test range, attached via swivel to a 15’ or so length of extremely heavy (400-lb. test) mono, or braided wire. The mako can’t bite through the single-strand wire, but keeping the strand short minimizes kinks, which lead to break-offs. The longer heavy leader takes care of business when the shark spins or rolls, which would otherwise chafe and break the main line. Never use multi-strand cable at the hook, however, because mako can chew through the individual strands and may eventually part the cable.

            Another important factor is the hook you use. Again, Sampson has strong feelings on this matter: “The corner of a shark’s mouth is thick and fleshy making it an excellent location for a hook to hold with little chance of it tearing out. Once a circle hook takes hold, fishermen are free to fight a shark with little fear that their hook might pull out during the battle or at the boat side. Also, during the fight, even a steel leader can part if it is constantly raked across the shark’s teeth. With the hook in the corner of the mouth there’s much less chance that the leader will contact the teeth and allow the fish a chance to bite, grind, or kink its way through it. On top of that, circle hooks create minimal injury to sharks you plan to release, and any sharks not headed for the dinner table should certainly be treated with respect. So use circle hooks, period.”

            It goes without saying that you should also pay a lot of respect to the danger-factor any time you’re dealing with a shark. Yes, these fish can seriously hurt you and your boat. And after visiting the 20 Fathom line, you probably want to come home victorious—with all 20 of your toes and fingers.

To charter the Fish Finder call Capt. Mark at 410-726-7946, or go to www.bigsharks.com.

Gaffing Mako

An important part of dealing with any large fish is knowing when the animal is tired enough that it can be controlled at boat-side and safely landed or released. If a fish is ready to be taken anglers shouldn’t prolong a fight and risk either losing it or stressing the shark out so much that if released it might not be able to recover from the struggle. Likewise, anglers surely don’t want to rush and grab the leader at the first chance they get and possibly lose the fish or be injured from a shark that’s not nearly ready to cooperate.

The mate’s first job in the process is to get a sense as to whether or not the shark is even ready for the gaff. When he grabs the leader he’ll know if the shark is tired enough that it will allow him to move it about, or whether the fish is still strong enough that it is pretty much capable of doing whatever it wants. If the shark still has a full head of steam the mate might suggest that everyone takes their time and allow the fish to fight a while longer before they attempt to stick it with a gaff or even a tag.

When the shark is ready, the mate will direct the fish to within striking range of the gaff. It’s crucial that he’s able to release his hold at any second and allow the leader to slip from his hands should the shark muster up enough strength for another run. I’m sure I don’t have to go into the gory details of what could happen if the guy holding the leader can’t let go when a shark makes a final run.

I know that my instructions to gaff a shark back towards the tail contrasts with the usual policy of sticking a fish in the head or “shoulder” area. But sharks ain’t like other fish; gaff a shark forward of its dorsal fin and a fisherman will lose the option of controlling the fish by pulling it backwards behind the boat, and they’ll have a heck of a time getting the tail rope on the animal. Think about it, with the gaff up in the head, anglers have no option but to pull a shark to the boat pointy-end first. That’s not the safest end of an upset shark to have to deal with, particularly when the next task is to secure a rope to the tail which might be a good six to ten feet at the other end of the thrashing, rolling, and snapping critter! In over 35 years of sharking I have never encountered a situation when it was better to gaff a shark anywhere but in the tail.

While I’m on the subject of what “not” to do: gaffing a shark involves the use of a flying gaff not a straight gaff. The barbed-hook, detachable head, and rope of a flying gaff allows a fish to be left in the water after it’s been impaled. A straight gaff, on the other hand is used to stick a fish, snatch it out of the water, and swing it into the boat in one motion. Any fish that does a lot of kicking and twisting will quickly find its way off the barbless and relatively short hook on most straight gaffs, so experienced anglers won’t use this tool for holding fish in the water. Instead they’ll use it to get the fish out of the water as quickly as possible. And therein lays the problem of using a straight gaff for sharks–even if you have the muscles to heft a couple hundred pounds of shark over the side, would you want to? I don’t think anyone would want that much live dynamite going off on their deck, it’s bad enough when a 10 pound dolphin misses the fish box and goes flopping all around the cockpit—imagine what a 150 pound shark could do!

Of course that’s assuming a fisherman could even get a decent size shark in the boat with a straight gaff. I know a fellow who made the mistake of sticking a 100 pound mako with a straight gaff. The fish immediately rolled away from the boat pulling the gaff from his hands, then it rolled back the other way and whacked the guy in the face with the gaff handle. In the process the gaff fell out of the fish and sank while the fish kinked the leader and got away. My buddy lost the gaff, the shark, a piece of his tooth, and a few ounces of blood all because he chose the wrong tool for the job. Unless the shark is little fellow like a sharpnose, bonnethead, or dogfish that can go from the water directly into a cooler, never use a straight gaff for sharks–period!

Some of the most common flying gaffs come in four, six, and eight-inch sizes. This measurement is made from the shank of the head (the hook) to the point. A six inch head is ideal size for most sharks in the 100 to 400 pound range. An eight inch head is better for the larger sharks because it will take a bigger bite out of the fish and have less chance of tearing out. However, a larger head is difficult to plant on the smaller sharks, so anglers would be wise to have both a six and an eight inch head available for whatever comes along. It’s always a good idea to have two gaff heads aboard as it allows one to be used as a quick back-up should there be a problem with the way the first one was planted.

Excerpted from Modern Sharking, by Capt. Mark Sampson, available at www.getgup.com

When it comes to sharking, float rigs work.

In the freshwater they’re called “bobbers.” But, as that term usually conjuring up an image of a red and white plastic ball suspending a piece of night crawler off the bottom for a hungry sunfish or crappie, no self respecting shark fisherman would ever admit to using such a thing. I expect that’s why in the saltwater we just call them “floats”. Either by choice or sometimes necessity, over the years I’ve made shark floats from chunks of Styrofoam, zipper-lock bags, balloons, trash bags, soda bottles, milk jugs, lobster trap markers, life jackets, foam rubber drink can insulators, a beach ball, and yes, even red and white plastic bobbers. I’ve tried just about every commercially made float I could get my hands on, and obviously a lot of other stuff just because we needed something, it was on the boat, and it floated.

Good shark floats should meet a few prerequisites: Floats should be readily available, reasonably priced, easy to stow on a boat, not have to be replaced after every hook-up, not harm the environment or marine animals, and be able to be distinguished from one another when multiple floats are deployed. Also, after hook-up a float must not in any way hamper the fighting and landing process. Finally, they must be adequate to suspend baits that could range from a tiny chunk of fish the size of a marshmallow to something as large as the head off a 60 pound tuna.

All that is a lot to ask of a float, and it should be obvious why the old plastic bobber ain’t going to cut it! It’s also why a lot of sharkers (myself included) gravitated to using balloons as floats. Cheap, easy to find, multiple colors to distinguish one bait from another, different sizes for different size baits, and on hook-up they were rigged to pop or break off and be out of the way during the fight. For a lot of years balloons were the best alternative we had for shark floats. But they weren’t perfect; balloons would often not release properly from the line (particularly when taken by small sharks), the broken balloon would often stay on the line and hang up in the rod guides, and when holding up very heavy baits on choppy days balloons would often pop or break free thanks to the constant snatching by wave action. The last straw that sent a lot of us sharkers looking for alternatives to balloons was when we learned that whales, dolphins, seals, and other marine animals were dying after mistaking deflated balloons for jellyfish or other food sources and eating them. Even though the huge majority of balloons found offshore are released from the land by non-fishermen, many anglers not wishing to further contribute to the problem have wisely given up their use at sea.

After a lot of years of trial and error, shark fishermen finally stumbled upon a product to meets all the prerequisites. And some anglers might be very surprised where it was found–in beach and sundry shops and the kid’s section in department stores. Hardly designed, marketed, or sold to help anglers catch big sharks, but that’s exactly what the four-foot long foam “fun-noodles” that kids play with at the beach and in the pool can do. Available in two and a half inch diameters and a variety of bright colors, one of these “toys” can be cut-down to make from three to 10 individual shark floats. Most of these noodles will have a ¾-inch hole drilled through the middle and these are the ones anglers will want to buy.

Depending upon the size of the bait, fishermen can cut the noodle to whatever length is needed to properly suspend the offering. One or two relatively thick (#64) rubber bands should be wrapped around the float about 1/3 of the way down from the top end. The fishing line should then be run through the middle of the float by dropping the snap swivel (attached to the line) though the hole in the center. When it’s time to deploy the bait the shark rig is snapped to the line and the bait is allowed to sink to the desired depth. Once the bait is down as far as needed a short length of the fishing line above the float should be doubled over and wrapped around the rubber band two or three times to keep the float from sliding up or down the fishing line. When a shark takes the bait and the line comes tight, the rubber bands will unroll and allow the float to again slide freely up and down the line. At this point the float works as an indicator to show exactly where the line enters the water–a nice feature on long battles, particularly when the boat requires a lot of maneuvering.

After the battle, the float is still on the line and instantly ready to send back out. By purchasing fun noodles in a few different colors, anglers can better keep track of their lines by color-coding their floats whenever they are fishing more than one float-line at a time. The only drawback of this float system is that sometimes sharks or other fish (like big bluefish) will ignore the bait and actually attack the float. With the fishing line running through it this often results in a cut line and lost rig. However, this happens so infrequently that the benefits outweigh the hazards of using these floats. Oh yea, one more very good advantage of using fun noodles is their cost, at $2 to $4 for a four-foot length that can be cut into a number of floats, it’s probably one of the cheapest bits of tackle shark fishermen are likely to use.

Excerpted from Modern Sharking, by Capt. Mark Sampson, available at www.getgup.com