Thursday, Jul. 24, 2008

Sharks bring summer excitement

By Brad Harvey

Enquirer Herald

Like most kids, I always had a fascination with sharks. For years I thought the credit for that went to the late Peter Benchley, since his book, "Jaws," and the subsequent movie were both major hits as I was coming along in the mid 70s.

It wasn't until much later when, as a tackle shop owner in Charleston, I realized that this is something kids are just born with. I couldn't begin to count how many youngsters came in and asked, "Where can I go to catch a shark?"

Just as often, I had tourists come in to book guided fishing trips upon which they would want to know if sharks would be caught. "All my son/daughter wants to catch is a shark," they'd say. The lazy guides loved this because, truthfully, sharks can be easy.

The so-called "good guides" always hated taking those clients. They were much more interested in catching redfish, speckled trout or tarpon. According to them, sharks were lowly and not worthy of anything more than "trash fish" status.

I'll admit to having cursed my share of sharks while fishing for something else, only to have a large one swallow my hook and run for the horizon at speeds that would make Jeff Gordon green with envy. Still, there have been just as many times that they have saved what would have been a very slow fishing day.

That was exactly the case for me this past Saturday. While spending the weekend in Charleston, I shot down to Edisto Beach to join one of my lowcountry pals, Walt Haynes, on his boat for a day of tarpon fishing.

Tropical storm Cristobal was brewing just off of the Carolina coast, leaving conditions a little less than favorable for either fishing or boating. Unable to safely reach our best spots, we opted to stick close to the mouth of the Edisto River and fish the rip-line which lies about a mile out from the beach. We've had luck there before and had hopes of jumping at least one tarpon before the day was done.

Unlike tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys and other hot spots where fly rods are preferred, lowcountry tactics involve soaking large, dead baits on the bottom or free lining live bait behind the anchored boat. Here, heavy-action spinning rods with 20 pound test line and heavy leaders are the norm. Once the lines are out, it's sort of like catfishing. You've just got to wait for the bite.

Neither Walt nor myself are patient enough to just sit there "twiddling our thumbs" so we spent the down time catching whiting on a light rod. Had this been our main pursuit, it would have been a great day by most anyone's standards. We caught one after another about as quickly as we could re-bait the hook and cast back out. Whiting are great on the plate and I know a lot of people that would call me crazy for having tossed back 30 to 40 of them.

We were probably somewhere around our fifth or sixth whiting when one of our big rods doubled over and the drag began screaming. I jumped for it as Walt began scanning the water for sign of a 100 plus pound tarpon breaking the surface to perform the aerial acrobatics for which the "silver king" is known. He even did his best; trying to "will" the large fish into being just what we came for by exclaiming, "Jump! Jump! Jump!"

It wasn't to be. After a tiring fight, I had a four foot Atlantic Sharpnose shark alongside the boat. We tried to be positive by telling ourselves, "That's okay. We caught something. Now let's get a tarpon."

A few minutes later, another rod sounded off. After fighting this one for a few minutes it was obvious to us that it was, once again, a shark. As it neared the boat, we were more than happy to have the line snap, thus saving us the trouble of releasing the fish.

Before we knew it, we caught another one. Then another and another and another! The funny thing was, without even realizing it; we had gone from being disgusted with them to rushing to get the bait back in the water. "There's gotta be more of 'em," we said.

All told, we caught sharks that ranged in size from two to six feet long throughout the day. Most of them were Blacktips and all of them fought incredibly hard while thoroughly wearing us out.

We didn't get to see a single tarpon this time. Still, it was a pretty good day for two old buddies that hadn't shared time on the water in two years. To be honest, I had a great time! Kind of like being a kid again.

-- Brad Harvey is a freelance writer in Clover. Visit his Web site at www.bradharveyoutdoors.com or e-mail brad@bradharveyoutdoors.com