About 15 years ago, Ricky Long and his brothers deduced that fishing behind shrimp boats might be a good shark-fishing tactic. They were right.
They’ve been benefitting from the approach ever since, letting the shrimp boats do the “chumming,” so to speak, while Long’s 45-foot charter boat reaps its reward as well. The shrimp boats are constantly tossing fish out of their nets, which draws in big numbers of hungry sharks just a half-mile off the coast.
“It’s great right now,” said Long, who is based out of Little River (843-249-1889) and spends most of his time along the Grand Strand. “If people come to us and want to catch something big, that’s what we do.”
Blacktip sharks comprise the bulk of the catches, but tiger sharks and hammerheads also are regular catches.
“The blacktips we’re catching now are 75 to 100 pounds on average,” Long said. “But we’ve caught sharks anywhere from 50 pounds up to 400.”
Tiger sharks are typically the largest, but blacktips make the best table fare, so Long will allow his clients to keep a couple of sharks to eat if they so desire. Other clients, he says, prefer to release everything they catch.
Long will drift a net behind the boat to catch croakers for bait, then hook two of them through the tail on a two-hook rig that he drifts in 25 to 30 feet of water.
The action should continue to be good into mid-October, he said.
“The shrimp boats are the key,” Long said. “They’re catching all those fish in with their shrimp and they’re throwing fish away constantly. That chums the sharks.”
Long, 51, has been fishing and guiding all his life, but never grows tired of seeing a little kid battling a big shark.
“When you take a 5-year-old and he catches a 100-pound shark, now that’s fun,” he said.
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