There are certain nights that never leave you. They don’t always involve the biggest fish, the most impressive catch or a personal best. Sometimes the story that sticks with you has very little to do with what you landed and everything to do with what could have happened.
A buddy and I had made the hike to one of those surf spots that isn’t for everyone. It required timing the tide just right and wading through water that was deep enough to make you question whether it was worth the effort. By the time we reached our rocks, we were wet from the waist down and committed. There was no turning back until the tide eased.
It was a perfect summer night. The water was alive, bait was around and stripers were feeding. We had each claimed our own rock, separated by about 10 feet. Mine protruded a couple of feet above the water, giving me a little more elevation. My friend’s perch was much lower, leaving him standing in water nearly thigh-deep for most of the tide.
The bass cooperated early, and before long my friend had one on a stringer tied off beside his rock. It wasn’t unusual. In places where you’re a long way from shore, dragging a fish around all night isn’t practical, so the stringer stayed in the water while we continued casting. Then the bluefish arrived.
Anyone who has fished a summer blitz knows how quickly things change once bluefish move into the mix. One cast you’re catching stripers. The next you’re replacing leaders and digging treble hooks out of a fish with a bad attitude.
My friend had just landed one and was busy wrestling it off a lure armed with two trebles. His attention was completely focused on the fish in his hands. At almost the same moment, I hooked another bluefish that immediately took off on a long run.
The fish was probably 20 yards from my rock when I decided to click on my headlamp for a better look.
That’s when I saw it.
Behind the bluefish was a dark shape moving through the water with a clear purpose. At first all I could make out was the dorsal fin slicing the surface. Then the rest of the body appeared. It wasn’t another bluefish. It wasn’t a bass.
It was a shark.
“There’s a shark behind my fish!” I yelled.
The words had barely left my mouth before everything changed.
The shark suddenly lost interest in my hooked bluefish. Instead of continuing after it, it made a sharp turn and started swimming directly toward my friend.
He was still trying to free the bluefish from the trebles and had no idea what was coming.
The shark closed the distance quickly. Even in the darkness I could tell it was a big animal, somewhere around 8 feet long with an incredibly broad body. There wasn’t any splashing or dramatic surface attack. It simply glided through the water with the kind of confidence that reminds you exactly where you sit in the food chain.
As it passed directly in front of my rock—close enough that I could have stepped onto its back if I were crazy enough—I reacted without thinking.
I flipped my rod around and drove the butt end straight down onto the top of the shark’s head.
The response was instant.
The shark whipped into a hard 180-degree turn and disappeared back into the darkness just as quickly as it had arrived.
For a few seconds, neither of us said much. The only sounds were the waves and our own breathing.
My friend looked over at me and then down at the water surrounding his rock. Without saying a word, he untied his stringer, climbed onto my rock and spent the rest of the night casting shoulder to shoulder with me.
Looking back now, it’s almost funny. We laughed about it after the tide dropped and we were able to get back in, and the story has only grown better with time. But it also served as a reminder that we share these waters with far more than just the fish we’re trying to catch.
As anglers, we spend countless hours learning tides, currents, bait movements and moon phases. We become comfortable in places that most people would never think of standing after dark. That familiarity can sometimes make us forget that the ocean is still wild.
Today, sharks are more common along our coast than they’ve been in decades. That’s a conservation success story, and one every fisherman should appreciate. But it also means we need to stay aware of our surroundings, especially when handling bleeding fish, using stringers or fishing around active schools of bluefish that can draw larger predators into surprisingly shallow water.
That night didn’t end with anyone getting hurt. It ended with two friends laughing on the same rock and another story added to a lifetime of fishing memories.
