Anybody know where I can go to buy big shark baits?
keith mcpherson
No where to buy them in charleston. Best bet besides catching them is to go to the marinas with a big cooler when the charters come in and slip the deckhand a few bucks for some decent carcasses. They will normally leave you a bit of meat on the head and fill your cooler for a 20.
You could check a local fish market for some scraps.
tub of shrimp gets you whiting, whiting gets ray or sharp nose ray or sharp nose gets you beast… a lot of us just work our way up the food chain
~Russ
Couldn’t have said it better myself xochal
your best bet is to save your whiting, rays, bluefish, and scraps from cleaning fish you wanted in big freezer bags. a 12-14" whiting cut into 2 or 3 chunks will get hit just fine. if you can catch live horse mullet in a cast net, those get smacked readily too and will also work if you freeze them and take em out later. redfish, flounder, trout, … carcasses get attention too. id imagine you can get scraps from a marina, but if you dont have luck with that you can get king mackerel, tuna, … heads at the asian food store on rivers ave.
I have never had luck using any shark as bait for other shark.
It may be a myth, but I was told shark blood is a shark repellent.
Definitely a myth. Big sharks will eat smaller sharks like they are candy. Just remember to follow the regs. Gutting/soaking would probably help. I don’t doubt the urea is a deterrent.
few places to buy big bait… just saying…
Lady fish work extremely well if you can catch them. In fl I can usually catch and endless amount. I’ve only caught one here and I caught it last night. Sliced him in half and had two big runs from it but I couldn’t hook up.
The biggest shark I’ve ever caught was on a mullet. I’m going to try catching some today and stopping by the Asian food store
This goes back to what is a big shark… For Black tips 4-6ft range, Lady fish, Jacks, Whiting and such. If your paddling I would try to drop at least on Big (several pounds) chunk of FRESH ray or Shark, Seriously, it needs to be fresh. either caught that day or stored on ice for a few days, not frozen. The big bait will not catch (as many) Black tips or smallish sandbars/lemons. They will also last alot longer, shappies and blues will not destroy them. Those big baits will get you the big tippers, big lemons, Tigers, Sand tigers, and god willing a hammer. The big bait is not going to get hit every day. my opinion is set a big bait that’s going to last all day on a big rod. let it soak. then fish your smaller rods with the whiting and what not. I currently use a Avet 30W for my big rod. Many people us 50s 80’s 12/0’s i like a smaller reel with lots of braid. Other advantage of using ray and Shark is it greatly reduces your chances of catching a RAYZILLA.
~Russ
We have landed many larger sharks ( 9 ft.+) on sharpnose, dogfish and spinner sharks . Had an enormous Tiger on for awhile on a spinner shark chunk about 10 lbs. a few years back in the surf.