iStockphoto / NaluPhoto
A charter fishing trip off of Cape Canaveral, Florida experienced quite the thrill when their American red snapper was devoured by a sandbar shark which quickly triggered an all out shark feeding frenzy right next to the boat.
Capt. Jamie Glasner is the owner and operator of Fin and Fly Charters in Cape Canaveral on Florida’s East Coast. The fishing is particularly hot on that coast this time of year as Spring triggers changes in the water temperatures that heat up the bite.
While the Gulf Red Snapper season in 2023 was a whopping 87 days long making fishing in my part of Florida glorious for nearly three cumulative months, the Atlantic Red Snapper season was just 2 days long and took place in July last year. The 2024 dates have yet to be announced and I’m mentioning all of this because the fisherman here was reeling in an Atlantic Red Snapper when the sandbar shark bit it in half and triggered the shark feeding frenzy.
Nothing could have been done to stop the shark other than crank up the drag and rip the fish in as fast as possible but hindsight is always 20/20 in these situations. Two clips show the shark feeding frenzy off Cape Canaveral. One where the shark grabs the snapper and triggers the action. In the second clip, the sharks go after the boat’s trolling motor:
In this second clip, the sharks appear to be targeting the boat’s trolling motor while they are whipped up into a classic feeding frenzy:
For those who don’t live in Florida, the comments on these posts might be a confusing place. They echo conversations I’ve had with countless friends in the fishing community from captains to recreational anglers. But the rest of the world hasn’t seem to catch up to the reality fishermen are facing here in Florida: there are too many sharks.
Many shark species in Florida and globally are currently threatened or were in the past. Many protections have been put into place to reverse plummeting population numbers.
However, many in the Florida fishing community (myself included) believe regulators have gone too far because it’s almost unheard of to go reef fishing these days and not have the day ruined by sharks. That’s the status quo, they’re everywhere and they ruin recreational fishing trips.
Of course, there’s a flip side to this where sharks are an invaluable part of the marine ecosystems and food chain. But the shark feeding frenzy seen above really isn’t out of the ordinary these days. Similar scenes can be expected while reef fishing on either coast of Florida pretty much 365 days a year.
All of that is to say, if you read the comments about how the ‘shark population is out of control’ then everything I mentioned above is a surface level explanation of the sentiment behind that.