Thread: Fripp Island Shark Fishing

Went to Fripp Island with a friend this week for 3 days to do a lil fishing. The water was warm as bath water in the surf. We arrived Monday about noon and used hi-lo rigs to catch a few whiting. I cut one into fillets and baited my rig. Not long after I cast with the fresh bait, my 9' Tica with my Penn Fierce 5000 was screaming. Something BIG was ripping my 30# powerpro off. I looked out and saw the culprit, a 6' spinner shark jumping around. Of coarse my mullet rig was no match for the shark, whick it straightened the hook, so I ran inside and got my 12' Tica with 65# powerpro. I baited up my 6/0 circle hook drum rig with 6oz and fired out a mullet head. It only took a few minutes and I had on another sizable shark. This one was huge though. I estimate it to be 8 feet long, another spinner. He jumped out of the water on the hookset, and I had him on for about 20 second, in which he took out 50 yards of line. Then BAM, he tailwhipped my shock leader and was gone. The shocker that was on it was old 50# mono and it was going bad anyway, so we stopped by a local hardware/tackle shop and bought some supplies. I got some 80 and 200# mono for shock leaders and hook leaders, and some 8/0 Gamagatsu Octopus Circles to crimp on. That evening, all we caught was small Atlantic Sharpnose sharks in the 3' range. Tuesday at Low tide we tried the surf again, and I hooked up with a nice shark using my new rigs and a croaker head. After a short battle, I had this nice blacktip beached. It was the biggest shark I landed this trip, even though its not that big. The big spinner was about twice its size. All sharks were released to fight again some other day. I also caught a 4' Bonnethead on a local boat ramp, but it broke me off right under me on a barnacle covered float. All fish were caught on the head of either a whiting or croaker. They wouldnt touch any other baits. They fought pretty good for their size. I sure did cause a scene when I beached that 5' blacktip amongst the children swimming in the ocean! Kids were running, some screaming, some crying. Oh well. Gotta learn somehow.

One thing about that picture, the boy is now 6'4", so it makes that shark look small. Whisker whipper would make some fine bait, for about 20,000 pin fish.

Some of us got to work.