Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Boaters know all about what wind will do for their travels across open water. When it blows hard it's going to be a choppy ride, and when there's little wind, it'll be smooth. What some folks don't realize is that, while wind "speed" will affect the surface of the water in the form of waves, wind "direction" will help determine the characteristics of the water beneath the surface including water temperatures, clarity and the life within.
As we transition through a normal summer season, the most common weather patterns produce winds that typically come up from the south and southwest, but weather patterns over the last few weeks have produced a lot of days dominated by light easterly winds that have created some very unique conditions offshore. Recently we've been doing a lot of fishing within five miles of the beach, and on some days the water has been so clear it appeared as if we were 30 or more miles out! With that kind of clarity and water temperatures pushing 80-degrees, you'd think you were fishing much farther south than 38-degrees latitude!
And it's not just water , but the fish as well that seem to be trying to fool us into believing that we've been fishing somewhere other than off the coast of Delmarva. For instance, last week we landed a 24-pound dolphin on shark bait just five miles out. The next day we had another dolphin of about six pounds in the same area. We also had a school of "Atlantic moonfish" come into our chumline. I could see them in the clear water but didn't know what they were until we caught one on a small hook. Even then I had to go online to figure out what we had swimming around in our livewell - I had never even heard of such a thing until then!
Of course, since we mostly chase sharks, we've also noted that along with other fish, the tropical-like waters have ushered in some tropical-like predators as well. Take the "blacknose" shark for instance. Growing to a maximum length of 4-5 feet this is a relatively small species that to the untrained eye might be mistaken for a dusky or sandbar shark, but the lack of an interdorsal ridge on its back is proof positive that it's neither of those species that are common to our waters. A decade or so ago we caught a blacknose off Ocean City and recognized it as the same critter we sometimes catch down in the Florida Keys. But when we sent the tagging details to NMFS they questioned our identification claiming that the species had never been reported north of North Carolina. When they reviewed the photo I sent them of the shark they agreed that we had indeed caught a blacknose.
Since then we've landed about 2-4 blacknose each season with the catches usually occurring when the waters are warm in August or early September. However, in the last few weeks this batch of extra warm clear water has already brought ten blacknose sharks to our hooks and I'm guessing that we have a shot of seeing a few more before it's all over.
Another shark that is known more in the south than up here is the blacktip. We usually pick away at this species throughout the summer and end up logging maybe a dozen or so catches. We're currently involved in a blacktip research project that requires data from 30 animals. We expected it would take a couple summers to get what we needed but as we're now already up to 21 blacktips it's possible that we might make our goal in this one season alone.
Tiger sharks are warm water sharks that have been off our coast forever but seldom encountered less than 15-miles offshore. Those taken closer to shore are typically little guys weighing in at well under 100 pounds. But in the last couple weeks a 10-footer was taken in the surf off Assateague, we watched one of the same size swimming close to our boat ½ mile off the Island, and another good size one was landed from a Delaware beach. Large tiger landings and encounters so close in are not common in these parts.
Finally, no discussion about southern sharks would be complete without a mention of bull sharks. Bulls are quite common in tropical waters and we often hear of them as far up the coast as Virginia Beach but not so much along the coastal side of the Eastern Shore including the Virginia part of it. As they are encountered with some frequency in the Chesapeake Bay, it would almost seem that, as bulls work their way up the coast they hang a left and go into the bay rather than continuing straight north to our Mid-Atlantic waters.
In over 40-years of sharking we've never caught a bull shark, but hearing that some of our local commercial fishermen have taken a few over the years I always figured it would happen sooner or later. That day occurred in 2020 when we released one that we estimated at about 150-pounds. After forty years in the making I didn't think it would happen again so soon, but last week while fishing in the unusually warm, and clear water we tagged an 8-foot bull we estimated at about 300-pounds! I'm still not expecting to catch any more bulls anytime soon, as a matter of fact, I kinda hope we don't start seeing more of them as they're not exactly a happy shark to have in the neighborhood, but with some of the crazy stuff that's been swimming about offshore lately I'm about ready for anything to show up under the boat these days.
As I write this, the extended forecast for the week after Labor Day is for more easterly winds that should help to keep the water warm, clean, and full of surprises. §
