Flies for Shark – yes I’m serious
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This year on our annual gulf trip I’ll have access to a much larger boat than usual (we usually take a 12ft Zodiac with a 15).
We have chased spinner sharks off the end of Ragged Island (Bahamas) and hooking up with one of them is a big deal. We would set anchor, drop a chum basket over the side, and wait 15 minutes. A variety of sharks would come in and getting the fly to a Spinner, specifically, could be a challenge. We targeted the Spinner Shark because of the acrobatic show they would put on once hooked, launching themselves out of the water in a corkscrew pattern or “spinning” and repeating the process until they wore out or threw the hook.
Big noisy poppers were productive as we would strive to keep any “edible” chum out of the water. The sharks would get pretty competitive about hitting anything that might represent something to eat. This included Lemons, Spinners, Black Tip, Sand and Bull sharks along with a few others I could not readily identify.
The flies pictured I built using Rainey’s bill fish heads and the biggest popping head Puglisi had to offer.
The other pattern was a tandem hook streamer with a lot of flash. These streamers don’t cast worth a damn so we would chuck them out as far as we could up-current and let them drift down away and deep.
Retrieval was long, fast strips with pops and jerks….anything to make the fly resemble an injured opportunity for a meal.
I also use hooks that dissolve quickly in salt water as a lot of times getting the hook out of a sharks mouth can be too risky….better to cut the wire as close as possible to the fly and return them back to the water.I use tube flies for sharks since I can use a wire bite tippet that is snelled directly to the hook. I’m fishing primarily for bull sharks, black tips, sand bar and bonnet heads. I find that bright colors work best so I use a lot of reds and oranges with plenty of flash.
Black tips will take a fly if they are feeding, but most other sharks would require some chumming to get them close and in a feeding mode. Shark have a lot of sensory receptors so they can detect movement, electical impulses, smells, taste, plus sight. That is why chumming helps. There is so much “food” taste and smell in the water, they can’t tell it’s not coming from the fly. The trick is to get the fly in their sight range, but entice them to strike before they realise the fly is not alive. I try to get the fly up close to their eye and do a quick strip away from them to get them to react.
I have always heard giant fluffy pink and white or orange and white. Have tried to catch them off Ship Island (south of Biloxi) a few times. While there are no lack of sharks that are willing to follow, I have yet to get 1 to commit.
In Borski’s first video he ties a pretty cool pattern for sharks.We’ll be in the Dixey Bar area.
If have a big boat available to you I would suggest pulling up tight to a shrimp boat that is dragging and casting into the chaos that follows.
If have a big boat available to you I would suggest pulling up tight to a shrimp boat that is dragging and casting into the chaos that follows.
Good idea!
Manners in a situation like that are key. Those shrimpers will normally let you hang around but they are very protective of their nets as it is their livelihood. Just ask first.
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