Take a Break From Ice Fishing?
I admit it. The unusual weather this year has driven me to seek warmer climes.
I debunked from Wisconsin and headed to Florida. While the Midwest is gripped in brutal sub-zero wind chills and piles of snow, I’ve been enjoying mild temps and sunshine!
On one of my adventures here I spent an afternoon walking along one of the many beaches, looking for, not shells (although there were plenty) but shark’s teeth. The ocean is a funny thing. As the tide comes in and then goes out, you can find all sorts of interesting objects that have washed up.
Another interesting thing about the geography of beaches is that they are not all created equal. On some beaches you will find many sand dollars, on another it may be conch shells. I was looking for shark’s teeth.
Shark teeth, you may ask? A phenomena about sharks. They have multiple rows of teeth that continually move from the inside to the outside before simply falling out. (Or perhaps lost in the dinner bite that got away?) On the particular beach I went to, shark teeth are commonly found. Keep that in mind.
So I spent the afternoon looking. Not as easy as you think, once you wrap your mind about the teeth washing up on shore. The best time to search is at low tide or as the tide is going out. I hit it wrong and was there just before high tide. In other words, make sure you check the tide charts if you decide to come and try your hand. I didn’t get ‘skunked’ though. I did find a couple.
Shark teeth are not white. They are black. While they are variations of a triangle, the different shapes tell you about the shark. For example, what type of and possible size of the shark. On this particular day I found teeth from average sized bull and tiger shark. Average size being about 4-8 feet long. Needless to say, I don’t go into the water beyond what I can see to the bottom. I figure if there are that many teeth of that many varieties being found there, shark have to be close by.
After a few hours of beach combing, I headed to a popular place on the beach for an early supper. Appropriately called Sharky’s it’s about a mile from the beach area where I look for teeth. At Sharky’s you can go out onto a public pier and do some fishing.
As I waited for my table to be ready, I walked out the pier. I’m guessing it’s about a quarter mile out into the Gulf. Lots of people strolling and fishing. Birds were perched along the railings, stealing bait or getting water when they could sneak in. A trio of dolphins were playing around the pier and some stingrays were jumping out of the water with HUGE splashes!
After supper, dusk had just started to fall when a young man came running out to the car park, muttering that he didn’t have a gaff. He was scrabbling around the trunk of his car and came up with a club with some hooks imbedded at one end. It was probably about 3-4 feet long and pretty wicked looking. He mentioned that someone had hooked a shark and didn’t have a gaff. So of course I had to go and see for myself.
Sure enough, out at the end of the pier, a man had on a shark. They used the gaff to get it up onto the pier and struck it a few times as it was flipping around looking to bite someone. I’d guess the length of the shark to be about 6 feet long. Couldn’t tell in the dusk, but I suspect it was a bull shark.
While we may have some lunkers in Wisconsin, the closest we come to this would be a sturgeon. I’m not even going to guess at how much it weighed.
Now you know why I don’t go into the ocean….
Becky DeWitt
Freelance Writer
Riverside Manor Insights