Right On Cue: Shark Week @ Montauk

Last year I posted a piece about sharks and kayak fishing that had me really considering how I was going to reconcile my desire to pursue big fish the way I love and my personal safety. My conclusion last year? At its core, it's a mental thing. If I could go out and have a good time, go out and have a good time. If not, stay off the water. It can get dicey out there.

Like last year, I'm filling my TV time with every manner of shark documentary and once again I arrive at Montauk Point each night with the idea already there. That said, while it was already "in my head" before I launched, it was "in my head" in a matter-of-fact kind of way. There had been numerous sightings of sharks along Long Island's south shore, including my own yesterday morning, which was most likely a thresher crashing some of the bunker that have been moving along the beaches. Friends forward me articles about the great whites that are tracking straight to Montauk before continuing on to Cape Cod. That always helps.🙄

I haven't been getting anything of note at the Point lately, and have resigned myself to blues and sharks through August. Last night I had perfect conditions: moonlight, glassy waters with almost no wind, yet cool after recent rains. I wasn't marking bait or fish, but it didn't matter. It was gorgeous.

I landed a pair of small bluefish between 4 and 5am, and as the eastern skies began to brighten, I had a pretty good view of what was happening without my headlamp. When the small bluefish I'd been fighting came up quickly, I could see the fish's pointy tail poke through the surface, and then another dorsal pop up about 3 feet behind it. I braced myself and let the line go slack in the hopes that the mele would resolve itself at a relatively safe distance of about 20 feet away. Instantly the bluefish went airborne, landing only about a foot from where it left the water. The shark, tan with a small dorsal (likely a sand tiger), turned on itself to get the blue, making a big splash beside the terrified fish. I just watched and waited, knife (always) at the ready to cut it off in case it does NOT bite me off and it just starts taking line.

Oddly, neither happened. I waited for the fish to run again, the shark to catch up to it, the run-off. None of that happened. I came tight slowly, expecting the shark to have replaced the blue as my opponent. Nope. The shark abandoned its pursuit, and I cautiously reeled in a very lucky bluefish that I quickly pulled into the kayak (at my feet) and then released.

My take-away? Like anything, the more you do it, the less you fear it and the more you see it as simply another factor that has to be managed. It's a black-and-white thing the first time you hook up with one: hard not to be intimidated when you're meeting a shark at the waterline for the first time. And right now it's manageable. I ran into one 4-foot shark. I know my spots, and if recent years are any indication, the shark numbers are going to increase over the next three weeks. Like last year, there will be nights over the next month when I'll have to cede the waters to the superior predators, and go home with shredded braid and no lure.

Maybe it's just me, but it still beats fluke fishing.