Shark "Fishing" Jones Inlet

[Avenger]

We ran out of Jones on Sunday in my buddy's boat and set up a slick in about 85 ft. The forecast was for afternoon rain and t-storms, so we were keeping an eye on weather. One of the guys thought it would be good to leave a small bait out to try to pick up a bluefish or something we could use for live bait. Well, the predictable happens and we got our first shark.... a dogfish, which we released, several times.

I spotted a house on the horizon and started taking bearings on it, the house gradually turned into a tanker and the bearings didn't change. Captain Crunch looks at the GPS and says "We're in the seperation zone. We should be safe." I said "You're assuming that they're paying attention, and that they give a $#!t." So we're getting the gear organized and preparing to break the chum slick when the tanker "British Courtesy" lives up to it's name and alters course. Jolly good show chaps!

So we sit for another hour, the wind picks up a little and we finally get a pickup on the deep bait. The Captain grabs the rod and promptly yanks the bait out of the sharks mouth. The shark picked it up again and started to swim off with it, but despite the captains patience on the second try jaws got a free mackeral.

The two guys who saw the fin insist that it was a Mako. Who am I to argue?

About a half-hour later we're still hoping that jaws will come back for another snack when a container ship appears on one horizon and heavy weather starts moving in from the other one. The bearing on this ship isn't changing either so we think it's a sign that it's time to run for the barn. We docked and were under the cover at Toomey's getting our first round just as the rain started. Thunder, lightning and pouring buckets. Go figure, for once the forecast was right. At least we didn't have to wash the boat!

So, not a "catching" report, but we've proved that there are sharks out there. Big ones, little ones...