So I was taking my kids out to surf some baby waves on Saturday in OBX and we're starting to get our suits on and we see something at the waters edge. It's a 4 foot-ish sand shark that has been bitten in half - recently cause we were down there about 2 hours ago and it wasn;t there...yikes!...glad the waves sucked, made it easy to stay dry that day
Hard to tell from the angle, but it looks like a little darkness on that top fin. Could be a black tip. It doesn't have the huge black mark on it, but I have caught a few that have just a touch of black on the tip.
Yeah, probably not now that I look at it more. No indication on those side fins either. Some don't have it, but its rare.
Sand Tiger, most likely. You can see a bit of the "striped" pattern on its side. Plus, sand tigers as adults have a gnarly overlapping set of teeth, i think. This lil guy has the beginnings of it. I've heard of hammerheads being not so friendly with other sharks. May have been a territorial hammerhead chomping some competition in half.
Yeah, I just saw that belly and it reminds me of all the blacktips I see and catch. Some have a very clear black tip on the top and a little marking on each side, but there are some where it's almost not even visible. And that is decent sized blacktip if it was one, but I will say, when you catch them in the 3-5 foot range, those teeth are plenty gnarly. People disregard them because they are so common, but they are to blame for most bites around here. I really didn't realize how gnarly they are until the first time I had to take a hook out of one. When you seen them up close, in your hand, you definitely proceed with caution for sure.
i never had to remove a hook from a decent sized shark. there's this rod-like tool with a little ring at the end that they use for serious sharks. i guess the idea is...you run the loop over the leader, then you push that over the hook and give it a push and pop the hook out. i get a little wary with big bluefish...if they swallow my hook at all, that hook is getting digested by the fish. i'm not performing minor surgery on a fish that is just dying to bite a chunk out of me.
Yeah, the guy that showed me the ropes on minor shark fishing just uses a little pair of pliers. Rays are actually the worst to get loose, cause those bastards try and shank you the whole time. To date, we have been able to successfully remove all the hooks in all the sharks. Biggest one I have pulled in was about 5 foot and I asked for some assistance on that one. The rest go pretty limp when you grab them tightly around the gills. My buddy is also "Johnny outdoorsman" and I have been with him, in waist deep water with bloody bait when he got bit in the foot by a little black tip. He just shrugged it off and continued. My comment was "Not cool bro. Not cool" so, he is definitely "safe" but still has somewhat of a wreckless mentality. He has been doing it a lot longer than I have. I prefer fishing for lots of other kinds of fish, it just so happens that one of the best spots we go to is a shark hole. Pretty much guaranteed a shark on almost every cast. Pretty nuts. First time I ever cast there, I let it sit out for like 3 minutes, thought I didn't get anything, it got a lot tougher to reel on the last 40 feet or so, and sure enough, there was about 2.5 footer on the end. Couldn't even feel it until it was almost to the beach.
I caught a salmon in Alaska in 2009 and couldn't fathom how to kill it once I reeled it in. It was huge by my standards. Children looked on in horror as I tried to cut its head off alive. Failed. I had to bludgeon it. I do not fish btw. At all. No idea what to do. I felt like a douche. I felt bad for the fish for sure. But I was hungry and living out of a truck so it was definitely happening. Poor salmon. So close. I actually happened to stumble across peak salmon run in Haines AK and got tourist fitted for the day. When in Rome? .
I'm no expert but it looks like a human child to me. Appears to be missing an arm. Probably bitten off by that fish that's lying next to it.
