It takes lots (and lots) of fish guts to catch a shark
Turns out sharks are picky eaters.
Chum 101: How to catch a shark
First Mate “Mako’’ Joe, uses leftover fish carcasses to make the dirtiest, smelliest, and best shark chum.
Fishing on the high seas is not all blood, glory, and trophy fish, but it certainly is bloody and gory.
Captain Greg Sears would know. It’s in his blood, stretching back generations. So Sears hunts sharks for a living with his Mass Bay Guides charter boats, the Fortuna and the For2na, a nod to the other big fish they catch.
The difference between a good day of fishing and a bad one can all hinge on a seemingly simple thing: the chum. Sears attracts sharks to his boats with two kinds of chum, which is essentially a slop of whole or ground-up fish carcasses trailed in the water behind a boat to create a “chum slick,’’ as the crew calls it. The slick of blood, oil, and fish parts can stretch back almost 10 miles on a good day, and a successful chum slick can attract sharks from about a mile away. Some days the boats don’t see a single fin, and others, Sears could reach over the side and grab a shark from the waters below.
“They had a reason for filming Jaws up here,’’ Sears said, “this is one of the top places in the world to catch big sharks.’’ The biggest catch on his boats was a mako shark about 15 feet long and 650 lbs.
Some people might call Sears and his crew cold-blooded killers, but the feds have many restrictions on recreational shark fishing. Permits allow boats to keep one shark a day, but Sears’ boats only keep the very best ones. Out of the more than 1,000 sharks they catch between July and September, they only keep about 10 sharks. Plus, he works closely with marine scientists and grad students as they tag and research sharks.
Someday, he wants to be the one to catch a great white shark, just like Jaws. To give to scientists to study, of course. But for now, that’s not part of his shark fishing permit.
Jaws: Behind the scenes on Martha’s Vineyard
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