June 24, 2017 — Sharks are chomping the catch of the day.
Fishing off the Outer Banks has been great this year, especially with big hauls of tuna. But boat captains are losing up to 20 fish a day to the opportunistic predators.
Able to smell, hear or sense the struggling fish from miles away, sharks come like a pack of wolves. In some cases, anglers are reeling in nothing but the head.
“You can’t even get a fish to the boat,” said Jack Graham, first mate on the Fintastic, a charter boat based at Oregon Inlet Fishing Center. “You get a bite and look back and there’s just a big cloud of blood.”
Sharks are taking the catch along with thousands of dollars in fishing gear, he said.
Captains could bring in their boats with the tuna limit by midmorning if not for sharks gobbling the catch, said Carey Foster, mate on the Smoker, also docked at the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center.
“The last couple of weeks, they’ve been horrible,” he said.
State fishing summaries include reports of sharks preying almost exclusively on tuna catches.
“This is the highest bite rate I’ve seen in 27 years,” said Brian Melott, a port agent for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. “These bites ain’t small either.”
Melott surveys anglers and collects catch measurements and other data as part of an ongoing fisheries census.
The two primary species attacking are dusky and sandbar sharks, Graham said. Dusky sharks grow up to 14 feet long and are known for their powerful jaws. Sandbar sharks can reach about 8 feet.