Real shark fishing

Reel in the ultimate shark fishing thrill at Florida

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL

A row of eight fishing rods stands along the ocean in Delray Beach, sturdily anchored in the sand with plastic pipes. Lightning flashes in the night sky. A reel starts creaking.

"That's a big one!" yells William Fundora, president of the South Florida Shark Club. "That's a hammer!"

The suspected hammerhead shark gets away, but the evening is young. By the time the night is over, they will bag a sandbar shark and two nurse sharks -- all gently released alive into the ocean.

The pursuit of the sea's most fearsome predator remains for many the ultimate fishing thrill, but shark fishing is coming under pressure as shark numbers plummet worldwide.

The biggest threat remains commercial fishing, driven by the East Asian demand for shark fin soup. But recreational fishing thins their numbers, too, as fishing competitions award prizes for the biggest tiger, bull or hammerhead, and individual fishermen seek record-shattering catches.

Now a campaign to limit recreational shark fishing is gathering momentum among conservationists, government agencies and some in the fishing community. The Delray Beach City Commission last week voted to ban shark fishing from the public beach. A prominent local taxidermy company has announced it no longer will accept sharks, putting pressure on charter captains to stop landing them. And the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission plans to ban the killing of sandbar, silky and Caribbean reef sharks.

Conservationists are pressing the Florida commission to add protections for the lemon shark and the great hammerhead, a species recently declared endangered around the world. Targeted by commercial fleets for their high-quality fins, great hammerheads are vulnerable to recreational fishing because they inhabit coastal waters, make an impressive trophy and put up an exciting fight.

"They're not a good catch-and-release species," said Neil Hammerschlag, a marine biologist and shark conservation activist. "They don't do well on a fishing line. The stress of the fight, they usually don't survive."

Shore-based shark fishing in Delray Beach came under fire after complaints from residents such as Patricia Jacobs, who said one evening she swam into shark bait, several floating fish heads.

"I'm not sure land-based shark fishing is such a great idea," she said. "If you're swimming, you don't want to be competing with large bait." While they use hunks of bonita and rays as bait, the shark fishermen say no chumming takes place. Zach Miller, 22, who has fished for sharks from Delray Beach since he was 16, says nothing they do endangers the public.

"We are trying to reassure swimmers are safe because this has been going on for longer than they think," he said.

Shark tournaments also have drawn criticism. In June the Are You Man Enough? Shark Challenge in Fort Myers announced a switch to a no-kill format after a campaign by conservation groups.

"They go after the biggest sharks, the mature animals," Hammerschlag said. "There are only a few of them, and they're the ones sustaining the population."

Gray Taxidermy Inc., a Pompano Beach company that claims to be the world's largest marine taxidermist, told fishing captains this year that it would no longer accept sharks, saying it would simply make fiberglass trophies based on a quick measurement before the shark is released.

"It's not necessary to kill them," said Tom Young, the company's sales manager. "We don't need a dead fish to make a replica. We don't want to do it. ... They're getting destroyed all over the world."

The company's announcement affected hundreds of fishing captains. Capt. Rick Brady, who operates the 46-foot fishing boat Marlin My Darlin from Fort Lauderdale, said he adopted a strict catch-and-release policy because Gray "flat refused to take sharks anymore."

The marine artist Guy Harvey recently wrote to the International Game Fish Association in Dania Beach, where he sits on the board, urging it to stop keeping world records for catches of tiger sharks and great hammerheads.

"The IGFA needs to take a leadership role on this," said Steve Stock, president of the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation. "We think there are certain species -- the great hammerhead, for example -- that they shouldn't be accepting."

Jason Schratwieser, the game fish association's conservation director, said the group's board may consider the proposal as early as this month.

Mark "The Shark" Quartiano, a Miami Beach fishing captain known for helping clients pull in big hammerheads and bull sharks, said the focus on sportfishing is unfair.

"One commercial boat can do a lot more damage than all the sportfishing guys in a year," he said. "Why can't my guys -- who're coming down to Florida and spending thousands of dollars -- take a shark?"

Standing on the sand in Delray Beach, Zach Miller tries to explain the thrill of catching them.

"When you're on shore, you're the apex predator from land against the apex predator in the ocean," he said. "You're connected by one line, and a lot of the time you don't win."