Page 173 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2026

The reel screamed as line sizzled from
it when the toothy beast grabbed the bait
and raced for deeper water in Mississippi
Sound.
James McCanless of Aquiline Custom
Charters grabbed the rod and handed
it to Selina Holley. The mother of six
children with her husband, Dr. Andy
Holley, battled the predator before
boating her own personal best fish, a
30-pound finetooth shark.
“We had a great time fishing with
Captain James,” says Selina from
Corinth. “I’ve caught a couple small
sharks before, but nothing this big. It was
really exciting to catch, a big adrenaline
rush. I love fishing the Mississippi Coast.
It’s a hidden gem and not as pressured
as some other vacation destinations.”
Known for their needle-like teeth,
finetooth sharks can exceed six feet.
They readily enter shallow waters off
the beaches or hunt prey in the bays and
estuaries. Finetooth sharks normally prey
upon small fish and sometimes gather in
huge schools.
Sharks give anglers opportunities
to catch giant, powerful fish without
heading far offshore. Few people fish for
them. Sharks frequently eat hooked fish
or bite through lines.
“Anytime it’s warm, we’ll have sharks,”
McCanless says. “People don’t really
need to go far from shore to catch
sharks. We mostly catch Atlantic
sharpnose, spinner sharks, blacktips and
bull sharks. Spinner sharks are especially
fun because they are so acrobatic. They
jump out of the water and spin in
circles.”
Atlantic sharpnose sharks regularly
steal baits meant for redfish, speckled
trout and other species. They average
2.5 to three feet long, but can top four
feet. Spinner sharks and blacktips can
both grow to about nine feet long and
weigh more than 120 pounds.
People might also catch scalloped
hammerheads and bonnetheads, smaller
cousins to great hammerheads. Great
hammerheads can approach 20 feet long
and surpass 1,200 pounds.
Confirmed maneaters prowl coastal
Mississippi waters. Among the most
aggressive and dangerous predators on
earth, bull sharks can top 11 feet and
weigh more than 600 pounds. They
frequently enter freshwater systems
including the tidal rivers along the
Mississippi coast.
SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living | www.smliving.net “The biggest shark we put on my boat
was a bull shark that measured nine
feet, 11 inches and weighed 450 to 500
pounds,” McCanless says. “My son
Austin, 11 at the time, fought it for two
hours.”
The second largest predatory shark in
the world behind great whites of “Jaws”
fame, tigers can measure 20 feet long
and weigh more than 1,700 pounds.
They often hunt in extremely shallow
waters along beaches. McCanless battled
one tiger about nine feet long.
“We were fishing on anchor near Horn
Island,” McCanless says. “A tiger shark
swam all the way up to the boat bow
where my anchor line was and went
crazy. It was like an explosion. He got off
the hook.”
McCanless and crew soon went back to
fishing. Then, he noticed that their boat
drifted nearly a mile from where they
had anchored it. In one swipe, the tiger
cleanly bit through the stout anchor line.
People can eat sharks if prepared
correctly. After catching a shark,
McCanless puts it on ice for about
20 minutes. Then he bleeds and guts
it. A shark’s blood turns to urea and
ammonia, which taints the meat.
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