While fishing a Land Based Catch and release shark tournament with my team mates Luis, Brad,  Alex , and my son Seth we had been going out fishing but had very bad luck in the first two weeks of April. I started  by catching  some cudas and some in my group did an excellent job on collecting big baits from other sources such as charter boats. In this post we were fishing from the Florida Keys to Martin County, Florida.

The pic on the left is the pic of a nice 30 pounder barracuda caught on a plug a month before. (Unfortunately that bait did not produce). The other is of a 25 to 27 pounder

This is the kind of bait I like the most. It did yield one blacktip from a bridge by Luis “picua”. A kingfish carcass yielded another blacktip from a bridge, and a dolphin fish carcass yielded a nurse shark. I got a decent lemon also, and then another blacktip on a jack crevale fish belly (10 lbs chunk).

On the first trip (first week of April) the goal was to catch a big shark so we used whole bonitos and big chuncks of Jack crevale fish, big enough to not allow smaller sharks to take the whole thing. Since we were using big baits we lost 3 sharks that day as we were getting prepared to leave I decided to leave the rods for last and pack the kayak first and then the coolers.  On the 12th hour of waiting for something  I was putting the stuff inside the truck and getting eaten alive by the noseeums I then heard a bunch of screams, THE ROD, THE ROOOD!!!!!  It was on, had a bit on my rod. I rushed to it and inmediately set the hook, I spiked the rod in the sand, and sat behind it to fight the shark, it was a big 8’10” male lemon that hit my bait. I rigged using a 20’ homemade 250 lbs test red line wind-on leader, a 950 lbs American Tackle swivel and 4 to 5 feet of #19 single strand wire with an 11/0 hook. As you will see the red balloon that popped is what I use to keep the bait at mid (it is just slightly inflated and at the end of the wind-on leader) then I tie a rock with about 10 feet of string.

Here are some pics:

Alex looking over the rods

Pic of the fight

Pic of the lemon shark

De-hooking the lemon shark

On the second week ( Friday April 10th) we went to a hole that we know had produce some decent sharks in the past. Here is Brad trying it out

After that it was my turn but I got hit quick so no pick of me fishing the whole, it ended being another blacktip.

Here is Brad helping out

A big Thanks as always to my photographer my daughter Nancy