We didn't win...

[tk2kewl]

but we had fun!

Tagged 2 blue sharks, released 3 more and brought one to the weigh in (175 lbs)

















We were just a little bit shy of winning :sarcasm:
368 lb thresher takes home $44,459 in cash

[LostinVA]

1. An interesting counter perspective

http://www.pbs.org/kqed/oceanadventures/episodes/sharks/


"Now, more than ever, two myths must be laid to rest. One, sharks are not mindless predators nor sinister man-eaters, and two, the oceans are not full of sharks."
- Jean-Michel Cousteau

For thousands of years, sharks have haunted the human imagination. These perfect predators, 400 million years in the making, are unique hunters with awesome power. But their reputation as cruel, senseless killers of human nightmares is a far cry from reality. These powerful creatures play a vital role in the intricate balance that makes up the oceans' ecosystem. Today, a new predator, the human, puts these amazing creatures at risk, giving sharks far more reason to fear us than we have to fear them.

Brutal modern fishing practices, such as long-lining, and new demand for shark fins have decimated shark populations around the globe. Every year, 100 million sharks are killed by people. (An estimated 50 percent of those deaths are accidental, sharks getting caught up in nets that are set to catch other kinds of fish.) In fact, the populations of great white and hammerhead sharks have plummeted by 75 percent over the last 25 years. But this slaughter has not drawn much public sympathy because many people view sharks as a menace. Yet the truth is that sharks are a vital link in the food chain. When shark populations decline sharply, the results can be dramatic, upsetting the balance of the oceans and producing unintended consequences with effects that can reach around the globe.

[tk2kewl]

4. please see the response to post #2...

...and take note of my avatar. I never take home more than I can eat. :hi:

[HERVEPA]

2. Glad you enjoyed killing and harassing the animals

I'm a vegetarian, but I can understand hunting or fishing if
1) You're going to eat the animal (not throw it back)

and

2) You don't get pleasure over it.

[tk2kewl]

3. to each his own...

the meat all went to charity. And I would point out that the large majority of sport fisherman I know are staunch conservationists; some of the best allies environmentalists have.

[lost-in-nj]

5. Hear Hear

My son is a catch and release fisherman....
Cleans the beach while waiting for a hit...
He got so upset once when he had to bring home a sea bass
because it was caught wrong and didn't live.....


They report anomalies and problems in the oceans they fish in....

Looks like you had a fun day......

lost

[tk2kewl]

9. I feel that fishing is a great way to connect with nature...

for me there is something primal about it. I like to eat my catch -- especially striped bass (mmmmmm!). But I respect the regulations -- only take what's permitted and what I can eat. Any others are released. :hi: ... and thanks to your boy for being a good conservationist!

[HERVEPA]

11. Catch and Release

What's the point of catch and release? You're sticking a piece of metal into a fish for your fun, essentially.

Also, as I said, I don't see how one can enjoy and have fun killing the animals.

I respect the fact that you eat or give away what you catch.

[tk2kewl]

14. I know people who can't understand why I would walk 10 miles...

into the mountains and sleep on the ground when I could go to a resort hotel. It's all about reconnected with something that has been almost completely bred out of the modern human.

[ForrestGump]

40. It's true that many sport fishers are very concerned with an involved in

marine conservation and so on. But, really, hauling several thousands pounds of apex predator out of one patch of ocean does not in any remote way qualify as 'conservation.'

Donating the flesh to charity is admirable but a spurious justification, not unlike the Japanese 'research' whaling being justified by saying "oh, it's okay: we ate them whales." That shark meat should never have left the ocean in the first place.

[RebelOne]

8. I am also a vegetarian, but I also work as a copy editor

for 10 hunting and fishing publications. And I can tell you, that all of the hunters and anglers take great pleasure in the animals they kill and the fish they catch.

[asthmaticeog]

20. Sounds kinda like the Fundamentalist Christian attitude towards sex.

:hi:

[flvegan]

6. The thresher shark has been listed as vulnerable to extinction

by the IUCN.

An absolutely shameful display.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. seems fun. i used to love fishing.

[tk2kewl]

10. well... if you're ever on Long Island...

I could take you fishing :)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. i like to fish in a very unfancy manner though

small pond, i make my own fishing rods etc.

[tk2kewl]

19. ahhhh... if only I could slow life down to that kind of pace.

O8)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. yeah, i was 11 when i last had the chance to do that.

[slj0101]

12. Congrats!

Congrats on unknowingly creating a pile-on! I knew it would happen. You savage, you. :D

[tk2kewl]

13. I figured...

but I am doing my best not to take the bait...

badda-boom :rofl:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. you can only judge somethings and not others though.

so driving an SUV would be under personal liberties.

however, fishing, even in a conscientious manner, is the act of an asshole. :sarcasm:

[tk2kewl]

17. you did forget the...

:sarcasm: tag, right? :shrug:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. well i thought the sarcasm was implied.

i dont think you are an asshole.

:hug:

i also think some people need big cars.

[tk2kewl]

21. Seemed so...

its not always clear when there is no voice inflection. :hug:

[Bucky]

23. Great pictures

Next time I go deep sea fishing I'll have to remember to take a professional photographer along.

I love that "moment of victory" shot! You make me want to go back to Florida.

[tk2kewl]

24. my brother-in-law took the pics...

I think he used a canon elf!

[HERVEPA]

25. "Food" for thought`

All these folks much more eloquent than I.


"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity."

George Bernard Shaw


"The thinking must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo."

Albert Schweitzer


"Not until we extend the circle of our compassion to include all living things, shall we ourselves know peace."

Albert Schweitzer


"The question is not, can they reason? nor, can they talk? but can they suffer?"

Jeremy Bentham


"Animals do not 'give' their life to us, as the sugar-coated lie would have it. No, we take their lives. They struggle and fight to the last breath, just as we would do if we were in their place."

John Robbins


"I should be unwilling to take the life of the lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man."

Mahatma Ghandi

[Blue-Jay]

26. "Yabba Dabba Doo" -- Fred Flinstone

[ronnykmarshall]

27. "Doo be doobe doo" - - Frank Sinatra

[Karenina]

28. STINKPOTTERS.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. "Inka Dinka Doo" --- Jimmy Durante

[Susang]

30. Doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy do

Manfred Mann ;-)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. "Scooby dooby doo!"

-Scooby Doo

[Susang]

32. Where are you?

~Shaggy

[ronnykmarshall]

34. La da dee. La da da. La da dee. La da da.

Crystal Waters - Sometime in the 1990's.

[EstimatedProphet]

35. "Boop boop be doo." Betty Boop

[cobalt1999]

33. Looks like you guys had a great time.

If you're ever down in the panhandle of Florida, you can join me for some grouper & snapper fishing.

[tk2kewl]

44. I will file that one away just in case.

If your ever up in NYC area you have an open invite as well! :hi:

[idgiehkt]

36. positively fucking repulsive.

[HERVEPA]

46. Thanks Idgiehkt

My responses were feeling kind of lonely here.

[fishnfla]

37. Nice rig. Looks like a blast

Sharks were all over the inlet here this past week, bonnetheads, blacktips, nurse sharks, hammerheads, huge schools of them....from pups up to six feet in length, although I think some big bruisers were about too. We were hauling them in for release on light tackle, had a lot of wear and tear on the drags and cut-offs.

Since the ban on commercial gill netting that recreational anglers fought for (*cough* ahem*) the fish species have rebounded. Fishing has been out of this world

[tk2kewl]

43. That was one hell of a boat...

not mine. 27 Worldcat. 42kts all the way out to our first drift.

This is my boat:

[ForrestGump]

38. I grew up around fishermen, and around fishing. Used to fish a lot when I was younger -- gave it up

not for any particular ethical reason but because I basically found it boring. Where I grew up, the waters were pristine, loaded with fishes, and the pickings were so easy that we could see the ones we wanted from 50' above and drop our bait right in front of them or, in the case of filefishes and the like, lure them all the way up to the surface, because their tiny mouths were too small to get hooked, and spear them from the boat. It was not a challenge and it became boring. More to the point, I spent an awful lot of time in the sea, snorkeling, and I found watching marine animals a hell of a lot more rewarding than getting sunburned while dangling bits of squid in front of them.

So it's not like I've got anything against fishers, in general, and in my professional life I've worked closely both with fishers from various backgrounds (by which I mean both the commercial and recreational kinds you're liable to find in the Florida Keys and Caribbean as well as artisanal fishers in developing nations for whom fishing is a vital part of their subsistence...in other words, people who pilot everything from big Bertram sportfishers down to dugout canoes) and with fisheries officials and scientists. I love watching fishes -- made a career of it -- and I don't like killing 'em (when I was a kid, my father always did that and in my professional life I always had people aboard who were into fishing and who'd very happily do the fishing when we needed to tag or, exceedingly rarely in my work, terminate the life processes of a fish) but I'm not some rabidly pro-animal activist who thinks the very idea of fishing is satanic.

But shark fishing is different. Dude. Really. Populations of most shark species -- hell, most fish species -- are plummeting around the globe. I appreciate that you do not catch what you cannot use, but I'm sure that others in this contest do not hold that same ethic and that the sport of it all is not only a key factor but is the factor. Longliners and others, and the bottomfeeding scum who indulge in such atrocities as finning, are decimating shark populations with alarming rapidity and thoroughness. In some areas, certain species are locally extinct. These are -- especially when we're talking about the lamnid and carcharhinid sharks that most people think of as the 'typical' shark -- large apex predators and their removal can have great effect on the entire system.

I studied top predators for my PhD and spent thousands of hours in the water with sharks and other top predators, so it'd be a mistake to dismiss what I'm saying as alarmist claptrap from someone whose sources are limited to soundbites from Chicken Little types who (correctly, I'm afraid) predict the death of the world's oceans. I worked with and talked with and socialized with shark researchers and fisheries officers from all around the world and the message was always the same: sharks (and other top predators, whether through direct extraction, as is the case with groupers, or via habitat destruction and degradation) are in dire trouble.

Blue sharks are probably faring better than most, though they're pelagic and not the easiest to census. Even so, I know for sure that their populations are also taking a nosedive, at least off the east coast of North America. True, fishing competitions have way less impact in that region than does bycatch by tuna and swordfish boats but, still, it's not necessary.

The catch-and-release thing is a cop-out to a great extent, too. That depends on the species, but studies of other shark species indicate that many (most?) die after release when caught and tagged by commercial or sport fishermen (the same is most definitely true of billfishes). These large, predatory fishes tend to have delicate constitutions, in some ways, and just do not take well to being caught and handled. For one thing, they tend to fight so hard that by the time they're reeled in to the boat it's only possible to land them because they're most-of-the-way dead already.

We all have an ecological footprint, and we all -- even the most conscientious of us -- contribute in some negative way to the environment around us, but shark fishing for any reason but sheer survival is an unnecessary direct way to ensure a very big footprint's left on natural systems that are under attack from all sides. It may have been fun, but there is no other positive in the adventure -- even tagging does not compensate for the harm done, not least because a dead fish with a tag on it is still a dead fish.

Maybe bluefish fishing would be a better idea. Or a fishing video game.

[ForrestGump]

39. P.S.

I'm not a person who rains on others' parades. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, and I'm sure much of it had less to do with the nature of the actual activity than with camaraderie and just having a good time out there on the ocean wave. I just want you to consider what I've said on the offchance that you had not before especially thought of an angle or two I might have mentioned.

[tk2kewl]

42. I appreciate the constructive feedback...

I do mostly inshore and near-shore fishing (blues, stripers, sea bass, fluke, etc), and as I said in an earlier reply, I have the utmost respect for size and bag limits. This was my first shark trip. Maybe I will make it my last. What large offshore species do you feel are appropriate for sport fisherman to take in the north east?

[ForrestGump]

47. Thanks for

taking it the way I meant it. :hi:

I'm not anywhere near an expert on the fishes of northeastern US waters -- my focus was on coral reef fishes and then only peripherally as a fisheries resource -- but my immediate reaction was going to be something like "actually, I'm afraid, there is no large offshore species there that's really appropriate to fish for." This is based on not just the well-publicized crash of New England fisheries but my conversations with Canadian fisheries officers who were out looking for some of the larger species they used to see in the Gulf of St Lawrence and not only noted a decline in populations (well, stocks...fisheries scientists talk about 'stocks' and ecologists talk about 'populations') but had a hard time finding any sizable fishes of the target species. Very, very alarming.

Usually, piscivorous fishes (predatory fishes that mainly eat other fishes) are the most vulnerable to overfishing, and are the first to go. This includes animals like sharks, groupers, tuna (especially the less pelagic species), and other fishes favored for food or sport. Many are what have been described as 'keystone' species, and their removal is not only bad news inherently but can trigger unpredictable cascades of effect that can be entirely unpredictable but are hardly ever good developments. There are quite a few classic examples: the death of many of the reefs of Jamaica and the extreme scarcity of larger fishes thereabouts, and ditto in parts of the Indo-Pacific where large-scale cyanide fishing for the live-fish trade has destroyed vast areas of coral reef and associated habitats, and the interplay between sea otter presence and urchin-algae presence off the California coast, etc.

Like I said, I'm no expert on the fisheries in your area, but the general idea is that most piscivore populations cannot really (these days, especially) handle anything but light fishing pressure. Recreational fishers are not the problem, numbers-wise, but every little bit helps (or hurts) and at the levels some fish populations are languishing at now, even recreational fishing could contribute to local extinction.

Google is my friend, though, and here're some NOAA resources that might help:

http://www.nero.noaa.gov/sfd/sfdmulti.html

http://www.nero.noaa.gov/nero/

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa//hms/

http://na.nefsc.noaa.gov/sharks/

http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/sos/species/

That last one's particularly helpful in answering your question. If you click on the species they'll give you stock assessments and tell you whether the species is locally overfished or not. A quick perusal showed me that Atlantic mackerel (overfished in the past), bluefish, striped bass (I know they're in trouble elsewhere, but not in your neck of the woods), pollock, and possibly black sea bass all seem to be pretty much okay...most of these species are not pelagic, though.

By the way, check out how much these blue sharks move around:

http://na.nefsc.noaa.gov/sharks/research/bluealex.html



Happy hooking! :-)

[slj0101]

45. Excellent constructive critique.

Much better than the typical "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you murderer" type thing you usually see around here.

[pitohui]

41. wow nice photos!

and congrats even if you didn't win, hell, 175# sounds damn respectable to me!