Corpusfishing.com

[o_brother]

I saw a thread a month or so ago where a guy was asking about sharks in Baffin.. He was wondering if Baffin had a large enough shark population to target them on fishing trips. Most of the responses were that the population was so few that it probably wasn't worth the effort..

Well, I have a short story about a shark I met in Baffin Friday night.... One of my brothers, a cousin and myself headed over to the Tide Guage just before dark.. Found a spot and anchored off and waited for the sun to go down.... Once it was dark we left the boat and spread out a little and started fishing.. I fished up untill midnight with no keepers and a few dink trout on live croaker... I was reeling up to cast again when something hit my croaker about five or six feet from me so hard it almost pulled the rod out of my hand. I figured it was a big red.. I baited and threw back out. As soon as it hit the water I had a strike and set the hook and heard the fish jump out of the water with a spalsh.... After a good fight I got it up close enough to see with my cap light that I had about a 25" skipjack... I let him get tired for a minute or two by letting him swim back and forth in front of me before I would get him off.. He finally rolled over on his side so I started to pull him up to me and get the hook out.. At that moment, from my right side, I saw a shadow come in and hit the skipjack so hard it flew out of the water and landed within inches of me..... Then the shadow made a full circle in front of me and came straight up at the skipjack sitting in my lap in waist deep water... Out of sheer panic, I jabbed down with the butt of my rod and hit a shark between its head and dorsal fin..... It looked to be about 2 1/2 to 3 foot long... That jab turned him but he was coming back around again so I started slapping the water with my rod and started running backwards as fast as I could.... Once I was in knee deep water, I stopped long enough to cut my line and let the skipjack fend for himself..... My brother was close enough to see what I was doing but couldn't see what was in the water. He asked me what was wrong and I yelled back SHARK.... He relayed the message over to our cousin and they met me back at the boat... Men being men they razzed me about screaming like a little girl... After a little bit I finally stopped shaking and did remember hearing myself yelling at the shark. I just don't remember at what pitch my voice was in...... We did get back to fishing but it was a very slow night with a total of five trout kept... Anyway, my take on sharks in Baffin is, I know there is a least one for sure and he likes skipjacks....

Mike
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Come out of the grass with your fins up.......

[Skillzzz9]

Sounds scary enough. I probably would've razzzed you too.
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[Uncle D]

Last week my buddy came down to fish for the week. He wanted to hit Baffin and asked if there were sharks. I said not that I've ever heard of. I think its too shallow and a long ways from any passes.
Guess I'll know better now.
BTW : How high an octave do you have to hit to "scream like a little girl" Just askin'

[robul]

lol! great story! next time get video!

[O.B.]

Cool story man. I'm sorry but i couldn't help but laugh. I would have probly yelled like a girl too.

[Central Scrutinizer]

2 of the biggest bull sharks I have seen in some time came from a trammel net set in Laguna Salada back in the early 80's. The heads were in 55 gallon drums over at A&I in Kingsville. They were part of the Late Dr. Chaney's collection. Don't know what ever became of those heads.

The number of sharks in the Laguna in general are few, but that's not to say that they are not there. Certainly not enough to make it a worthwhile "trip" out for them.

[o_brother]

Sharks don't bother me in general when I'm wade fishing. Just the one that was going to neuter me trying to get the skipjack.... I would never want to meet a bull shark with a head as big as a 55 gallon drum wade fishing.. I will admit that from now on I will always have that little event in the back of my mind when wade fishing..

Mike
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Come out of the grass with your fins up.......

[o_brother]

[landlocked beachbum]

Here's another true shark story from way back when:

"1916 Shark at Matawan Creek Attacks: Despite being 11 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Matawan was the site of three shark attacks on July 12, 1916. They closely followed an attack in Beach Haven on July 1 and one in Spring Lake on July 6.

An unknown species, most likely a bull shark, entered Matawan Creek where it killed a boy, Lester Stillwell; a man, Stanley Fisher, who was trying to rescue the boys; and injured another boy, Joseph Dunn. Over a two-week span in July, up to 100 sharks were killed during the hunt for this shark known as the “Matawan Man-Eater”. A great white shark of 9 feet in length was captured and later dissected. In it they found 15 pounds of human flesh, confirming it as a possible killer in Matawan, though it has yet to be proven whether the Great White was responsible for the attacks off the shore of New Jersey (nj) or for the Matawan attacks. Popular belief is that the Great White was responsible for the Shoreline attacks and a Bull Shark was responsible for the Matawan Creek attacks. It has been proven that Great White Sharks do not function in freshwater, the only freshwater shark that is a man eater is the Bull Shark."
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Dave


"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits". Albert Einstein

[hambone]

three years ago, mud island. just climbed out of boat very early am. trying to beat my kids to spot we'd hammered fish for three previous days. watched a 6' bull shark explode about three times on mullet before i realized what it was. after walking on water back to boat suffice to say five wade fisherman became boat fisherman. at least for a few hours. incidentally, not too far from where two guys caught huge bull shark previous spring.