Meet The Sharks
Page II

Meet The Sharks is an abridged version of chapter #3 from my book "Modern Sharking" and gives a brief description of many of the more common shark species taken by recreational anglers along the East Coast and Gulf Of Mexico. For more detailed information on these sharks and about shark fishing, I hope you will consider purchasing a copy of Modern Sharking.

Dusky
(Carcharhinus obscurus)

Duskies are about as generic a shark as you can get. Gray/brown back, white belly, rounded nose, average size eyes, average size triangular teeth, average dorsal, no spots or other markings - that's a dusky. They're sleek, beautiful, strong fighting sharks that might be found in the surf or out along the edge of the Continental Shelf, they're always fun to catch, and sometimes a handful to work with. But there's just nothing out of the ordinary about this species, like I said - generic! I suppose it's because duskies are so basic that a lot of anglers for a lot of years have come to use the name "dusky" to describe any shark they can't easily identify.

The "generic" Dusky shark.

The dusky's range covers most of the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. They're very opportunistic feeders and will eat just about anything they get inside their rather large jaws, including fish, rays, crustaceans, squid, and other sharks. Anglers can expect to hook duskies on any kind of bait and at any depth.

Duskies get big - really big, like 12' and over 700 pounds! But recreational angers seldom have the opportunity to encounter duskies of those proportions because thanks to overfishing, their numbers have dwindled critically in the past few decades and earned them a place on the NMFS Prohibited Species List, reserving them for catch-and-release only. These days most recreationally caught dusky sharks are hooked in the nearshore waters and are juveniles under 100-pounds.

Sandbar
(Carcharhinus plumbeus)

With no distinguishing features that boldly stand out to say "I'm a sandbar," this species is a close second to the dusky on the generic scale. Sandbars will vary in color from a bronze/gray to mostly gray and sport relatively large dorsal and pectoral fins. Like the dusky, sandbars are in the group of sharks classified as "large coastals" which signifies that they're more likely be found up on the Continental Shelf waters rather than out in the deeper water where the pelagic species are so common.

Sandbar sharks are a species that will often be caught in the surf and are known to frequently move up into coastal rivers and bays. In fact, the Delaware Bay is recognized as a nursery ground for this species, with the females entering the bay in early summer, giving birth, then heading back to sea, leaving the pups behind in an environment with less threat from predators.

A mature sandbar shark, tagged and ready for release.

Sandbar sharks are bulldog-like fighters that will always start the show with a few long runs and then settle in to a strong steady pull towards the bottom. If you were to compare the runs and jumps of a mako to that of a billfish, then you could say that a sandbar fights more like a tuna. Compared to other sharks the sandbar is more of a gentleman at boat-side and rarely makes the tagging and releasing process much of an ordeal.

Sandbar shark populations have been decimated after decades of being ruthlessly overfished by commercial fishermen for their meat and fins. Regulations are working to correct this tragedy, but considering the biology and slow reproductive capacity of this species it will take many more decades to rebuild the sandbar populations than it did to destroy them. The quality of sandbar meat is quite low and this species should always be released.

Dusky or Sandbar? For years a big source of confusion for anglers has been trying to tell difference between a dusky and a sandbar shark. The most definitive trait that distinguishes duskies from sandbars is the location of the first dorsal fin. On a sandbar shark if you were to draw a line from where the front edge of the dorsal fin connects to the body, straight down the side of the shark to the belly, it would hit about the middle of the pectoral fin. Do the same to a dusky shark and the line would miss or just barely touch the very back edge of the pectoral fin. Also, a sandbar's first dorsal fin is proportionately much larger than that on a dusky, and a sandbar typically has a greater girth up in the shoulder area.

Dusky on the left, sandbar on the right - the subtle differences between
these species can cause identification problems for anglers.

Color is not usually a good thing to use for identification because within a species the color of individual animals can vary a bit. But usually duskies tend to be more of a dark brown in color while sandbars will be gray or a gray/bronze. These color schemes tend to make the sandbar overall much lighter in color than the dusky, and when the angler finally starts to get the shark close to the boat the sandbar will appear gray and will be visible from the boat at a greater depth than the darker dusky.

A dusky is covered by minutely small and sharp overlapping dermal denticles and a thin layer of slime. Run a hand from head to tail down a dusky and it will feel slimy and very smooth, go the other way and it will be slimy but very rough. Do the same with a sandbar shark and the it will feel course in either direction because their skin consists of blunt, non-overlapping denticles, and no layer of slime.

Great White
(Carcharodon carcharias)

There's not much I can possibly say about great white sharks that hasn't already be published, aired in hundreds of documentaries, or of course made into a movie. I'd wish I could claim to be an authority on the species, but in more than 30-years of sharking I've only had the opportunity to examine five dead ones (all brought in by other anglers) and encounter two offshore, one of which we tagged and released, and the other we watched (with no intention to drop it a bait) for 45 minutes as it swam behind the boat. I've also had the opportunity to interview a lot of anglers who have either caught, or encountered great whites while fishing.

I guess from my own limited experience I can say a few things that might shed a different light on this rather famous shark. First, anglers have to keep in mind that great whites are (rightfully) a prohibited species, so they're protected from being killed. This in itself should be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks they might want to drop a bait down into the maw of one of these monsters.

Great whites are not common, but they could surprise
any shark fisherman when they least expect it.

Something else anglers should know about great whites: it may be a little scary to think about but these are not exclusively deep-water sharks. While it's true that off the East Coast they're not very abundant in the first place, and when they are found, they're typically a comfortable distance offshore; they're also a species that will come into the nearshore waters if they have a reason. The big white that we watched and the "little" six and a half footer that we released were both encountered while we were fishing for small sharks within five miles of the coast.

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