Scared of a 3 foot baby shark cause it had teeth. Bwah ha ha ha! lol. Friends been catching brownies in the surf at night for 2 weeks now. Bass fishing has been slow just might join them. You are correct sir they are here all summer.
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Shark PSA July 2015-
Just wanted to put out a little PSA for those who fish NNJ beaches and bays.....
Within the last 5 days I have gotten 3 separate reports of sharks with teeth in the SH Bay/Raritan Bay area.....
One from the guys who fish the Navy pier at night...
Another from a kayaker friend of a member here who lost a fluke last minute in SH bay. A shark came up from the channel and ate half of it as he was about to swing it out of the water...
Tonight I got a call from some friends who were fishing in the bay and witness to a bunker blitz end of day...
They saw some larger bluefish, and what they described as a 6' long shark cruising the surface feeding on the bunker...
As jigfreak and others explained....there isn't that much danger from being attacked by these sharks....unless one of the following conditions is true....
1. The biggest danger is when they mistake you for something else....if you are splashing or making erratic movements in murky water....
2. It's probably a smart thing to avoid wading out too deep if there are a lot of bunker concentrated in your area...
3. Finally, I think the biggest risk is at night for those who might want to wade out too far in the bay....
4. Or anyone fishing bloody bait like bunker heads and wading too far out while doing it.
I may be the biggest violator of circumstance #3 above....:embarassed:
The few cases I've heard of folks getting "bumped" are usually when fishing at night and wading.....
Be that as it may.....
Some may not think of the NNJ and Monmouth/Middlesex beaches as holding sharks....
Someone told me the other day if you want to catch sharks, you had to go down to LBI to do it...:rolleyes:
I just wanted folks to be aware...that with all the bunker around...we probably now have a fair number of sharks in our RB/NY Bight area....
In most cases, they are probably brown or sandbar sharks...which historically have not been one of the most aggressive species.....
**But, you never know when there might be a small great white, or bull shark come to visit....
A. so please be careful....
B. and think before you wade out too deep at night......:learn:
Thanks for the heads up dark.
Believe it or not a 6 foot hammerhead was within sight of the Asbury boardwalk on Sunday.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/201...bury_park.html
No attacks but there were probably a lot of folks who would have needed to change their bathing suits if they saw how close it came. See the pic.
one thing to note is that some have reported seeing sharks due to the abundance of cow nose rays and their habit of swimming with their wingtips above the surface while feeding.
if you can't see the body either due to murky water or distance then you can easily make the mistake, especially when they are swimming one or more behind the other, which they often do:
http://cdn1.arkive.org/media/7B/7BA5...at-surface.jpg
That's a good point. I have read reports of schools of sharks in the rb. From what I have seen sharks don't usually swim in schools in the bay unless there is a bunker blitz or something like that. More likely they are rays. With that pic you posted it's easy to see how they could make that mistake.
someone posted a pic of those "sharks" in RB... and it was clear to someone who has seen them, that they were cownose rays, once you compare pics side by side.
we've made that mistake in the backbays here in dixie as well.
HOWEVER, what I didn't realize until recently is that when rays are mudding on flats, they are going after crabs/shrimp and other flat-dwelling things, and that other
more desirable predators have learned to follow nearby ;)
So true! Cmon fellas these are baby sharks you're talking about. Come up to the great state of Mass and try swimming a hundred yards from the sand. Check out the latest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60w6KdhSsvA
Backstory? well, yes... usually a story of learning something the hard way or finding out about missed opportunities :D I'm still learning the south backbay flats... seems to be a lifelong process.
BTW, we've had our share of sharks, and apparently some adult big sharks do come near to our backbays as every year some juvi true sharks are pulled out.
The beach sharking is dominated by sand tigers and what folks call "browns"... though I doubt many if any of the beach anglers know how to differentiate between shark species (including myself) as there are apparently several types that look like "brown" sharks, especially in the smaller sizes we get off the surf.
But by 'predators', what I've learned is that other fish are up on the flats and when the rays come in, they stir up the mud with their wings, in order to dislodge crabs, shrimp and worms... then they eat. Well, then dinner is served and other fish come in to help clean up... so a technique here is to find the mudding rays and then fish around them with bottom jigs, cut crab, etc trying to avoid the rays themselves, of course.
Just a PSA..
after receiving reports by RobM of brown sharks in the Barnegat Bay system...I started to wonder when they would show up in the Raritan Bay and
New York bight area.
After speaking to a few of the old-timers who were fishing the Navy Pier last night ...and didn't really catch a lot of blue fish ......they also had strange happenings.
3 complete bite-offs through steel leaders like they were butter.
This is highly unusual for them to be here this early in the season, (usually) they don't show up until July or August at the earliest.
So it (appears) at least a few of them may be here right now. That's the most reasonable explanation for what happened to them last night.
That...or threshers.
If you are wading out there, like I and some of the others do, please be very careful you don't carry anything with you that has a scent.... or carry any bait with you at all.
Little early for browns. Could be threshers though. Jmo.What ds said be careful wading. Even carrying gulp might not be good.
Seals maybe?
It's a sea monster LOL
No its a baby whale.
I appreciate the comments and humor, people.
I've done some more thinking about this and I have trouble convincing myself that these could be brown sharks. It just doesn't fit for this time of year.
Additionally, a good friend of mine was fishing the ocean in Monmouth County yesterday with a conventional rod and reel. He's caught a bunch of big fish to his credit, and knows what he's doing.
He called complaining because he was on his way to a tackle shop to get respooled.. "something big just spooled him" and then bit through his leader.
If any of you have any thoughts on the most likely creatures to be doing that this time of year, they would be appreciated. Thanks
It sounds a little far-fetched, but there is a great white shark Nursery off The Jersey coast. Great whites can handle colder water than browns.
http://www.app.com/story/news/local/...y-nj/30324181/
shark reported in jetty country a few days ago.
http://www.nj.com/monmouth/index.ssf...ore_beach.html
I think they would still be around because of all the bunkers. My .02
could have been cow nose rays, who have a nice habit of keeping their wings up in "shark like" position.
Although one would think life guards would know the difference, without pics it's hard to tell.
that said, there are a ton of brown and sand tiger sharks hanging in the surf zone that no one knows about.
it's the people-biting buggahs that would scare ya... and I can't recall a surfer who got bit that said they said
they saw fins swimming around prior. when a shark wants to hunt, it doesn't let it's prey know it's around.