Shark During the Mullet Run
When the mullet run starts in September, it opens up several types of great fishing. On this trip we would target the top of the food chain: Tarpon and shark. The game here is to run down the beach and throw big live mullet into bait pods that are being ravaged. The best gear is heavy spinning outfits and 9/0 circle hooks with a long 80# mono leader.
Well it wasn’t long before we were hooked up. Usually the fish strikes on the surface and you see the explosion as the mullet tries to get away. Then the power and speed of these fish is incredible. It’s a blast watching and hearing the braid line screeching off the reel and then running after the fish to prevent from being spooled. We had numerous hookups of blacktip and spinner sharks in the 100# class throughout the morning. It was great fun! The spinner sharks are incredible! They leap into the air at warp speed and spin like crazy. The tarpon were scarce on this day. They migrate up and down the beach in packs so you can’t count on them, but you can always count on some big hard charging predators.
If you are interested in shark identification, check out the link below. It covers our 4 most common sharks along the beach and has several videos and pictures that explain the id process. The blacktip and spinner shark look very similar. The shark in my picture is a blacktip. The spinner shark actually has more distinct black tips on the fins. The easiest way to tell the diff in the water is the location of the dorsal phin. The spinner’s dorsal is located quite a bit further back and the spinner has a thinner/flatter head. The most definative diff is the spinner has a black on the anal phin. The blacktip does not.