Despite
the 5-7' surf, mass amounts of sargassum, and the raging current.. the weekend
outlook seemed pretty good knowing the fish would be active. Curmit and I
rocked down the beach late Friday night taking a slow and cautious 4 hours
on an outgoing tide to get to the Mansfield Jetties. We looked for Raiderred
who is nowhere to be found until morning. We get up and begin to get
gear ready for battle.
While waiting for Curtis to get out I begin attempting to get
some Rays and Whiting for bait, but end up with a load of Hardheads and Rays...
and also get this by-catch of a Bonnethead.
Raiderred and his buddy decided to leave after the low tide
sent the weed everywhere. However, Curtis and I decide to stick around for
the tide change and within an hour Curtis finally makes it out on the rocks.
We begin running baits out and give Curtis one of the only Whiting I
was able to obtain. Within a half-hour it was game on! After a short fight
Curtis gets in and we release a 4'1" Sandbar Shark.
While Curtis is re-rigging with a live Hardhead I deploy a Stingray
on my wide-6. Almost instantaneously I am hooked up as I get out of the yak.
I attempt to stop the fish as he tries to run along the jetty and I eventually
get him out just in front of the rocks.
After a moderately short fight we get in a larger Sandbar (6'2").
Take a couple pics and get her back on her way. This happens to be my
5th Sandbar in as many trips.
After the release we look back down the rocks as Curtis' Hardhead
gets destroyed and he is hooked up again. After not wanting to come
in Curtis eventually gets her close and I leader the shark. She ends up being
a fat 6'5" Sandie, the 3rd for us in less than an hour. Curtis secures the
shark with a tail rope while I take a couple pics.
Now here is where things got a little messy... We carefully
get the hook out but before noticed that the shark had regurgitated its stomach.
We were able to push the inners back in and we're ready to release but
eventually the shark spit it back up while on the rocks. Curtis still
had hold of the rope like in the above picture.
As I hop back on the rock with the pvc to once again push the
stomach back in, a small but rogue wave came and hit the granite slab pushing
the shark to lay on its side.. during this quick action the shark simultaneously
did the notorious 'curling' of the body enabling it to slide on the algae
of the granite towards me. Knowing the shark and structure was unstable I
pull back just as quick as the shark was moving. During the process of me
pulling away, the shark (while still sliding) reversed the swing of his head
with its mouth open in which it had barely caught the tip of my hand (completely
accidentally) with its upper jaw. The teeth grazed 3 fingers and the thumb
with deep lacerations to the middle and index finger. If I hadn't had the
past experience with sharks and reflexes to react to its movements i'd likely
be missing my entire left hand if not more.
After the accident I knew right away what had happened and looked
down for the damage assessment. I immediately saw a shower of blood raining
down and some 'meat' hanging and looked up at Curtis and told him we had
to go...NOW. On perhaps what would have been the most epic of Sandbar trips,
we were forced to pack it up and leave instantly. I grab one of my towels
on the rocks and wrap up my hand tight and brought everything off the jettys
I had except my rods which Curtis and a local visitor was gracious enough
to carry off.
As I get back to the truck I take the towel off and wash out
the observed inner portion of the two worst fingers in the freshly melted
water of the food icechest. It stung like a bitch but knew I had to clean
it out immediately. I waited for Curtis to arrive back so I could re-wrap
the hand in a clean (it was clean at the time) white T-shirt. I secure the
shirt tightly around the wounds and get Curtis to wrap it tight with some
of Clark's kickass heavy-duty electrical tape. Good news is after a
few minutes I had pretty much stopped the bleeding to nothing, but loss a
bit of blood in the process. I get some ice and throw it in a ziploc to help
with any swelling and then we are off to the races.. a journey over 75 miles
back to civilization on a beach at high tide, in which previously took us
4 hours to get down in the first place. If there were an olympic champion
in packing up gear in an emergency, then Curtis would undoubtedly be it...
props to him.
We start bombing back up the beach and stop at the cut at the
47mm to call Scott to research some info on the best place to go for this
injury and we'll give him a call back when we hit the blacktop. It takes
us just over an unbelievable 2 hours to get off the sand and we again get
a hold of Scott and he tells us to go straight to the Memorial hospital downtown.
In a nutshell I had surgery around midnight for about 2
hours. I will talk to the plastic surgeon in the morning but looks like
we took the proper actions until we got to the hospital and ended up making
the best out of the worst. I know a few guys have organized a 'pool' for
guessing how many stitches I have and will also let you know tomorrow morning.
...So what is the moral of this story? I had to think
deep and hard but had concluded this.. I have seen many, many sharks up close...
and handled hundreds. So why did this happen now? Well perhaps it was irrelevant
and only a matter of time. However, I think the answer lies within the variables.
Most shark fishermen dedicate to more stable and safer grounds (ie pier,
surf, etc). It is here there are really two main factors, you and the shark.
There is more control in this sort of situation if there is such a thing.
Now put in the other elements such as water and an unstable environment..
and this leaves you with the more dangerous and uncontrollable grounds such
as Jetty/Rock and ultimately Kayak Sharkfishing in which both Curtis and
myself are no stanger to. In the end more variables means more danger. Am
I going to stop fishing these methods..? Hardly. I will however retain a
keen sense of alertness and be sure not to let my gaurd down like always.
Its because of this that being educated and alert I came out ahead. Its also
one of those things where only something such as time and experience can
prepare you for. Thanks to Curtis and everyone else who made things go as
smooth as possible.
Until the next time (and maybe an electric reel)
- Oz
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