A UK man’s Florida shark fishing trip yields a surprisingly rare catch
COCOA BEACH, Fla. – A man traveling from England to Florida on vacation had one thing at the top of his list: catching a shark. But what he cares about is something much rarer.
Ian Atherton hit the sunny state earlier this month and joined Captain Jon Cangianella of the Fin & Fly charter at Cocoa Beach April 9 for shark fishing.
Cangianella deploys a school of bluefish, an oily fish that attracts sharks from great distances as the fish’s scent blends into the ocean currents.
Before long there was a bite on the line and Atherton watched a sawfish emerge from the water.
The fish’s nose resembles a hedge trimmer, and on a large sawfish it can grow up to 4 or 5 feet long. Fish use it in the wild by swinging back and forth in a school of small bait fish. A strong blow from the saw will stun a small fish, which allows the sawfish to pick it up from the ocean floor since its mouth is located on the underside of the large fish. Sawfish also eat crustaceans and other benthic organisms.
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Sawfish are very closely related to stingrays, not so many sharks, but they are sometimes caught using similar methods. They live in Florida waters, but their population numbers in the wild are only a fraction of what they were before pioneering families 120 years ago began trawling coastal fish with nets.
Cangianella freed the sawfish from its hook without taking it out of the water, and the sawfish swam away healthy and strong. After a unique encounter, the party sets off to another location with different bait, and Atherton lands a few king mackerel.
He never fulfilled his dream of catching a shark, but not many people can say they’ve reeled in a sawfish.
Follow Ed Killer on Twitter @tcpalmekiller.