Hooking up with boats and sharks

[BenCantrell]

Had a friend in town the weekend before last who was interested in trying for bull sharks in the St. Sebastian River. We kayaked baits out to the edge of the boat channel thinking that would be our best bet for hooking up. We had several ladyfish for bait.



No bull sharks showed up unfortunately, but we did manage to get our line wrapped around not one, not two, but three boat props. Each time it happened we dropped our next bait much closer to shore thinking surely a boat wouldn't come that close. Our last one was in 3 ft of water, not even remotely close to the boat channel. We concluded that you really can't fish this spot during the daytime.



The next day we went 2 hrs south to fish off a friend's boat. We anchored in 100 ft of water, set out a chum bag, and dropped two shark rigs off the back.



Bait was bonita (little tunny) chunks. My go-to shark hooks have been 11/0 1x wide gap circles, but for boat fishing I've upgraded to 14/0 3x wide gaps. The leader is 250 lb coated 7-strand, and behind that is a 400 lb mono grab leader with a 6 oz egg sinker.



While we waited I jigged a 2 oz megabait on the bottom and caught this spotted scorpionfish. It made me feel like I was back in La Jolla.



My shark rod went off. I let it take line for 5-10 seconds and then tightened down the drag. It wasn't a huge fish, but it was a fun fight.



My first proper boat shark! My friend IDed it as a dusky, which I had to double check when I got home.



That was it for sharks, but we caught a couple other cool fish including this bigeye.



In the afternoon we dropped live baits on deeper wrecks for amberjack. Had a few big fish on - either AJs or sharks - but didn't get any to the surface. Last fish of the day was this 17 lb bonita. We brought home 3 bonita and 6 vermilion snapper.



Freezers are stocked with plenty of more baits for that next bull shark session!

[jrodda]

Congrats on the first boat shark, the variety is cool. Those bigeye are always cool to see.

[vdisney]

That is one big bone 

[Latimeria]

Great seeing reports still coming in Ben!  As for the boats and the channels, that's the east coast for you.  I've caught more boat props than I can recall and all in places I would think "No boater in their right mind would have any reason for being here or motoring through.  As I always found out... I was wrong time and time again.

Otherwise nice fishing!  I've always wanted a Bigeye for some reason, but never got one.  Also, that's a hell of a Little Tunny!

Keep the reports coming.  You know we like some East Coast flavors every now and then.   

[BenCantrell]

Thanks! I was torn between feeling bad that I inconvenienced those boaters and annoyed that they almost never went between the bridge pilings marked as the boat channel. Lesson learned though, I'll find a better place to fish or stick to night fishing when the boat traffic has died down.

I have a surf fishing shark report to post as well, but I haven't edited the pics yet.

[Tim524]

 Nice, that scorpion fish has some vivid colors. The shark is cool as well

[Pinoyfisher]

Loving the East Coast reports!!!!!!!!