A Day on the Water

Today we went out of Fort Lauderdale to catch, tag, and take samples of sharks about a mile offshore in the Atlantic ocean. In order to do so,our class split up into 5 groups in order to have an equal opportunity taking part in the shark tagging. Before I knew it, my time had come to deploy the hook, line, and floats. Safety was the most important part of the day, especially with the rough seas and rainy weather. In order to deploy, the hook was baited with Bermuda that was chopped up into thirds. My first choice was the head so I had to puncture the hook through both eyes. Once the captain gave the “ok”, the bait was thrown in the water, which was connected to a 900 pound mono-filament line that stretched 100ft. The 100ft allowed the shark to move freely around the anchor so it will not tire and run out of oxygen. The anchor hits the bottom anywhere from 25-100ft down and a orange and white float come to the surface to mark where the hook and line are. In total there were 10 hook and lines to deploy. 

After the lines were in the water for about an hour, we cruised back to the floats in the order we deployed them. Retrieving the lines was the same process, but just in the reverse order. A crew member used a rod to grab hold of the line attached to the float to begin the retrieving process. Then the float was walked away towards the front of the vessel with its rope laid in a orderly fashion so it does not tangle. Once pulled up the weight was next, so you must drop the rope to ensure nobody will be caught off guard or hurt. The last part is the mono-filament line. You can usually tell if a shark is on if you see tension on it compared to some slack. Luckily we caught one sand bar shark that was about 6ft in length. The crew restrained the shark and the length was recorded along with a clipping of its dorsal fin and swabs from its teeth, gills, and the area behind the dorsal fin. All in all it was a successful day with a few bumps in between.