If You Want To Go Shark Fishing here Is A Beginner’s Guide To Get You Started
from The Fishing Wire
With Braided Line And Relatively Small High-Performance Reels That Pack A Punch, Learning How To Shark Fish Is Easier Than Ever Before.
Big fish, big teeth and big gear all conspire to make shark fishing an intimidating pursuit. But you don’t have to be Captain Quint, strapped into a fighting chair with a coffee-can-sized reel and a pool-cue rod, in order catch sharks. In fact, with braided line and relatively small high-performance reels that pack a punch, learning how to shark fish is easier than ever before.
Shark Fishing Tackle
Big game tackle has really evolved over the last few years. The size of the equipment that we used to use for striped bass, we now use for school bluefin tuna, and what we used for school bluefin tuna, we can now use for sharks. This is primarily due to today’s thin-diameter braided lines and the changes tackle manufacturers have made to keep up with the braided line. PowerPro 80-pound-test is the same diameter as 18-pound-test monofilament. We can spool 600-yards of 80-pound test braid onto reels that would only be able to hold 150 yards of 80-pound-test monofilament. This allows us to use smaller reels but have the same amount of line that we had on larger, heavier reels.
The advancements in fishing lines have pushed reel manufacturers to produce lighter, stronger, smaller and more powerful reels. The tackle manufacturers have beefed up the drags on the smaller reels to accommodate braided lines and powerful fish. On the Insufishent Funds charter boats, we traded in our large 50-wide reels for much smaller Shimano Talica 25s loaded with more than 600 yards of 80-pound-test braided line with a 50- to 100-yard topshot of 80-pound-test monofilament. This is a difference of almost 3 pounds in the weight of the reel alone! This not only cuts the weight of our outfit in half, but it also gives us the ability to set the hook with much more control and a lot less stretch than when we used straight monofilament. Now my anglers are fighting the fish and not the rod and reel.
The rod advancements have changed dramatically, as well. We are now able to use much lighter rods that have the same line ratings as the older, heavier rods. We use Shimano Terez TZCX66XXH rods which are designed specifically for braided line. These rod and reel combos, partnered with a good fighting belt and harness, have drastically reduced our fight times. That is good for the angler and good for the shark, especially if you plan on practicing catch and release.
Our standard shark rig on the Insufishent Funds is fairly simple. We use 15 feet of 480-pound-test American Fishing Wire multi-strand cable connected to a 500-pound-test AFW Mighty Mini Swivel with 10 feet of AFW 240-pound-test single-strand wire connected to the hook. For our weighted rig, we add a 3-ounce weighted swivel in between the multi-strand and single strand. If drift conditions are faster than 3 knots, we add additional weight to the rig with a rubber band. Mustad 7699d hooks work the best in sizes ranging from an 8/0 for small baits, all the way up to the 11/0 for our largest strip baits.
Where To Fish
Finding the right place to set up your chum slick is critical. When we are looking for a good place to set up, I find it to be a lot like hunting. First, we start with areas of structure – ledges, holes, and wrecks.
Once in these areas, we start looking for rip lines or any disturbances or changes in the surface waters. These can even be slick lines from a feeding frenzy that may have happened before we arrived or may be happening under the surface. Sometimes they can be small pockets of baitfish or flocks of birds in an area. We like to see any of these signs coupled with water temperatures between 65 and 68 degrees.
On the Insufishent Funds, we always drift, in order to cover more ground. Once we set our slick, we are constantly looking for sharks to engage. Sometimes you see the birds that are sitting in the water all of a sudden take flight, or you notice that the bluefish that were hanging out in the slick have all of a sudden disappeared. The birds and bluefish both know not to stick around when a shark comes to visit.
Chum Slick
Once we have located a place to fish, we set up two buckets of chum. Typically, we tie one bucket off of the bow and one bucket off the stern. This helps jumpstart the slick and gives us a constant flow of chum. After we go through the first two buckets, we switch over to one bucket set off the midship cleat for the remainder of the day. We use chum bags that are specifically designed for a 5-gallon bucket of chum. In an 8-hour day of fishing, we usually bring six 5-gallon buckets of chum. During tournament time, we bring eight 5-gallon buckets because we chum a little heavier then.
We also bring a 75-quart cooler full of bluefish or bunker to use for chumming. We add in some fresh cut bunker and bluefish chunks to spice up the slick, but are careful not to overdo it. The goal is to attract the sharks, not feed them.