Quote from: 1morecast on July 19, 2022, 05:22:04 PM
Nice job! That beach looks pretty empty too.

Yeah that's the best part about this part of FL.

Quote from: Latimeria on July 18, 2022, 10:54:38 AM
Imagine if the lightning hit your rod and exploded it before you caught your bull. LoL

That thought occurred to me. 

Quote from: Latimeria on July 18, 2022, 10:56:24 AM
Also, it's the first "freshwater shore" shark report.

I thought about combining this one with the surf report, but I knew I had to post in the FW section. 

We got our bull sharks! Yes, they were embarrassingly small, but a friend tipped us off that there were large numbers of them in the St Sebastian River right now, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity. On Saturday we went over to a local park to fish the river. As soon as we got there it started downpouring.



I had one bait in the water, but the lighting got so bad that we had to run back to the car to wait out the storm. I could barely see my rod, and fortunately it didn't look like anything was happening. Then, right as the rain stopped, I saw the rod start bouncing, and I ran across the park to grab it.



Sure enough, it was a juvenile bull shark.



There she is.



We sent out two more baits, and Ally got the next one.



She was equally happy.



ID was easy on these guy. Short blunt snout, stocky body, and they were caught in freshwater (or at least brackish very close to freshwater).



Yes, we still need to go catch big ones.

This is a much delayed report, but I'm finally caught up on photos, so here it is. Back in May my friend Steve visited from CA and wanted to try for finetooth sharks in the surf. Last year we caught 5 finetooths at the end of March, so we thought they might be around.



We got a bite shortly after casting out baits. The fish barely put a bend in the rod, which is actually what we wanted to see for potential finetooths.



The culprit ended up being a blacknose shark, one Steve didn't need for his lifelist but still a very cool catch.



A short while later Steve caught a second blacknose.



Ally wanted to catch a blacknose as well, so we went out again the following weekend. She got a bite right away, and it was a decent fish!



It was a big spinner shark! They're similar to blacktips, but they have a much pointier snout, more streamlined body, and a black tip on the anal fin. Blacktips have black tips on all the fins except the anal fin.



Here's Ally's blacktip from last year for reference.



Her next bite was her lifer blacknose. Two new shark species in one session is pretty darn lucky.



The blacknose's black nose.



A friend from Canada was passing through, and he joined us about 15 minutes after we released Ally's blacknose. We were sure we'd put him on some sharks as well, but we fished the next 4 hours with not a single bite. Funny how it works that way. We felt bad about it, but we were swapping out fresh baits every 30 minutes, and they just weren't getting bit.



Now head over to the Freshwater Shore Fishing Reports...

That's a fish!! Congrats on the summer sevengill.

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.

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!

Best of luck dealing with this Jim.

Quote from: jrodda on May 23, 2022, 08:29:27 PM
Some good size specimens of both species.

Yeah my thought too!

Kayak species fishing, woohoo!

That's a lot of changes coming up soon! Good luck with everything.

Sorry about your grandma, Tom!

That's a fish for sure. Nice work.

Quote from: KogaHead on March 29, 2022, 06:00:11 PM
Doctor will say ... more ... getting pounded.

Take care of yourself Tom! Heal up and get back out there when you can.

Quote from: Chris on March 20, 2022, 02:35:27 PM
Also, I ran across a school of flying fish about 2 miles off the beach today. Could not get them to eat anything but got them to take flight a few times.

I support this endeavor, haha.

Nice mix of fish Tom!