Page 54 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2020

SPORTS & OUTDOORS TIGERS in the Water
story by Frank Wilem photos by Wesley Martin
ver my years blue water shing and scuba diving,
I’ve seen a bunch of sharks. We’ve also caught lots of small blacktip and
other sharks while shing the barrier islands o of
South Mississippi, but one thing I had never done is surf sh for big sharks o the beach. That changed when we joined Adam Andrews and Dylan Wier from Gulf Coast Nation to sh o of Perdido Key.
These guys truly have a passion for shark shing and are very good at what they do, though I thought it was more than a little insane. They invited us to bring a couple of special needs kids from Kidz Outdoors over to
sh with them. The Gulf Coast Nation crew set up on the beach where they then remained for the entire three-day weekend, shing, eating, and sleeping right there on the beach.
We started after dark as they prepared to set their baits
consisting of large stingrays
on giant hooks connected to their equally giant rigs which
remained on the beach. Armed with these baits, they
then paddled their kayak out through breaking waves, nearly becoming airborne in
the heavy surf. The possibility of capsizing in waters where they were attempting to catch
large tiger sharks did not seem to be an issue in their minds. But it sure would have been in mine. They set the baits from a couple of hundred yards to over 800
yards o the beach.
It didn’t take long before one
of the Gulf Coast Nation team noticed a line dropping. They grabbed the rod to con rm that we had a sh, and we were hooked up. They helped one of the kids don a stand-up harness and he began to ght the sh while the team reeled in the other baits.
After a tough ght, a n broke the surface a ways o shore and soon the six-foot-long shark was reeled onto the beach where
the Gulf Coast Nation team sprung into action again. They removed the hook and tagged it, then immediately waded out into waist deep water while holding the shark to release it. Brave lads they were indeed.
Over a twelve-hour period we caught and released around a dozen sharks, including a couple of nice tiger sharks. One of the tigers was pushing ten feet long but another, probably much larger, got away by straightening out one of their heavy duty hooks!
Gulf Coast Nation | www.gulfcoastnation.com
54 | April 2020
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living
Removing the hook, tagging and then releasing.