The “humps” offshore of Islamorada have been holding some big sharks lately. We stopped by one of them last Sunday and made our first drift with a butterflied skipjack tuna. We didn’t get a bite and I was disappointed and a little shocked. Luckily I had my charter there to say “hey, that was only one try”. So we reset and drifted over the hump again. It didn’t take long this time and the 80 wide reel started ticking off. We feed the shark a few seconds and then put the boat in gear. The shark made a blistering run, dumping off a hundred yards of line line like nothing. We had a lady angler out for her birthday so she got in the chair. She had just seen shark week so she was very excited to see what she had on the end of her line. It was a 30 minute battle, back and forth, but eventually she worked the giant 350 lb dusky shark up next to the boat and we got a few quick pictures before releasing the big creature to fight another day. We fished yesterday as well for a couple hours before a big thunderstorm chased us in. We caught a small almaco jack on the hump and then rigged him up for shark bait. It didn’t take too long to get a bite, but unfortunately the shark broke us off after a few minutes. We didn’t get to see him but I know he was BIG! With the wind blowing 25 knots and the rain coming we had to cut it short that day, but I’ll be back out there soon! Email me if you’re interested in trying to catch sharks in the Islamorada!
Capt. Nick Stanczyk
