Light Tackle Sharking

Light tackle sharking is packed with fast action and exciting catches. To get the scoop on how to be successful, we spoke with Capt. Mark Sampson, the author of the book Modern Sharking (Geared Up publications, www.getgup.com ) and a full-time charter captain who focuses on sharks year-round.

Q: What’s your favorite bait for sharks?
A: I like to use both surface and bottom lines set with cut fish baits. Oily fish work best, such as bonito, mackerel, bluefish, and false albacore. Tuna if my very favorite shark bait.

Q: What about rigs and hooks?
A: Use 6/0 circle hooks rigged to three to five foot wire leaders, attached to your main line with a swivel. Spinning or conventional gear in the 20-pound class has enough beef to bring in most sharks you’ll encounter in near-shore waters, like Atlantic Sharpnose, dusky shark, and dog shark, without over-powering them.

Q: Do you ladle chum over the side, or do you use a chum bucket?
A: Hanging a chum bucket full of ground fish over the side of the boat is the best method. A slow, steady cloud of fish particles is ideal. If you cloud the water with a massive barrage of ground-up fish parts, oil, and blood, you only succeed in creating a wide and confusing highway of smells and food that might not be so easy for a shark to follow directly to the boat.

To better appreciate the problem, try to visualize chum leaving the boat: it disperses in a big cone-shape swath, with oils staying on the surface, light particles staying high in the water column, and denser bits of chum sinking faster. The farther away from the boat, the wider the cone of chum becomes. Sharks that enter the cone at its wider section swim inside a huge cloud of smells, which surely peaks their interest, but doesn’t give them a reason to follow the chum to its source and a fisherman’s baits.

Now let’s consider a modest flow of finely ground-up fish, steadily streaming all day from a chum bucket. Again the lighter oils and fatty particles will tend to stay up while the heavier stuff sinks. But because the particles are more consistent in size they’ll be affected by the current more uniformly and instead of a cone-shape, the spread of chum will be more of a vertical fan shape. Since the sharks swim through and out of the chum cloud quickly, they’ll have an easier time determining which direction it’s coming from. If they want to eat, they’ll have to follow it all the way in – right up to your baits.