Shark Problem

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Originally Posted by fshntime

Once again, cleaning and disposing of carcasses was allowed on the old pier and didn't attract the Sharks. Panama City piers allow it and so does Navarre, and don't attract Sharks. Then why does everyone think it does here? What's the difference?

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Oh it did. Just not as many (carcasses or sharks) as we have now.
Plus the cleaning table at the old pier was INSIDE the longshore sandbar in a deep trough, not right next to where most of the mackerel are now hooked up.
The new pier is longer, more anglers fish from it and more carcasses are dumped in the water than ever before.
It's a bigger 'reef' area and stretches more than 200 yards farther out into the Gulf than the old pier.

Florida piers used to not allow fish filleting on their piers. If that has changed and they are dumping any where near the number of carcasses GSPPier is now then I predict they soon WILL have a similar problem. Still they don't have Mobile Bay nearby. That is a HUGE shark nursery and as JohnG mentioned with no longer a take of .5 million pounds of shark annually they are breeding like rabbits. ALMR shark restrictions are so draconian and positive ID of restricted species ambiguous enough that most folks (in boats) avoid them like a plague.

I find it interesting that every time a bite dies down @ the GSPPier the sharks soon thin out.
Then after a day or two of big catches (and dumping increasing numbers of carcasses) the shark numbers (and incidences of them taking hooked fish) skyrockets.
Coincidence? Yeah, sure ;-)

I know it's not the same thing, but for many years a local country church would sponsor a fox and coyote drive twice a year, and provide food for the hunters and would put up flyers in all the small towns in the area, This kept the coyote population in check and was a good social event. About 20 yaers ago a few groups of people started protesting this practice and disrupting the drives to a point where the church just stopped doing it. Well it didn't take long before there was an over abundance of coyotes and now they are a real problem. I'm not sure, but I think if they would do this twice a year around the pier it would probably help. I'm not sure if the powers in charge would consider relaxing the size limits for a day or 2 a year because of nuisance animals or not, but I think it would help.

I think the problem is caused by several factors. Sure they're attracted to the remains thrown over the pier rail but there are also more sharks than in the past. I've also wondered about the bycatch of the net boats that work heavily when the spanish show up.
I know that this hardly qualifies as a scientific study but last year in my very limited time at the beach swimming, my family and I had to get out of the water twice due to sharks at the state public beach. That had never happened to me before in many, many days over the years at the beach. Sting rays, yes. Jellyfish, yes. But not because of sharks.

Mr. #'r,
As you say, when the fish show up, so do the Sharks. As you say, carcasses are increased and so are the Sharks. Could it be when bait shows up, the fish show up for us to catch and the Sharks move in to feed on the fish or are they just after the carcasses. Which comes first? The chicken or the egg? I've also experienced Sharks feeding on the first sandbar in numbers so I think they would have arrived at the old pier to feed on carcasses as well no matter where they were dumped. I guess we need a scientific experiment!

Yeah, that would FUN for the rest of us Todd, but Haywire might get grumpy not being able to feed his pets all summer long, and we certainly wouldn't want Haywire to get grumpier or HIS PETS to get any hungrier ;-)

BTW, I meant my comments as an observation.

We started seeing an increase in the numbers of sharks on the pier the summer after the spill and perhaps worse every year since.
Coincidentally(?) there was a 1/2 million pound reduction in the annual commercial take of sharks in the same area since the spill.
On the old pier we periodically had issues with shark infestations, but no where near the degree we see now.

The old pier likely only held a 1/4 or 1/3 of the baitfish the new one attracts.
Yep, there's the start of our 'foodchain', a huge living biomass!
I venture to guesstimate that annually the old pier only caught 1/4 to 1/3 of the number of mackerel that were landed on the new one in 2009-2012 when things really started getting 'out of hand.'

Roughly we could probably say the number of sharks around the new pier is 3 to 5 times what it was around the old.
About equal to the increase in biomass and amount of carcasses around the new pier.

The solution is as complex as the issue of why the sharks are there in the first place.
But logic would dictate the more enticement (and reward) there is for the sharks, the more of them we're going to see concentrated there.

Ah ha #'r. We seem to be nearing agreement in common ground. Thanks for your insight.

I'll be down there in a week from Thursday for a long weekend. I'll do what I can to solve the shark problem. Unfortunately, I don't think I will put much of a dent in them. Plus I don't think I can convince myself to kill our limit without knowing how to properly clean them to justify it.

Yeah, we all want to see a good solution to this problem Todd.
I wish I knew what that is ;-) lol

The 'elephant in the room' is pier anglers don't want to loose the convenience of cleaning fish on the pier (as almost happened a few years ago until it was pointed out the fish cleaning stations were more than 500' from the beach).
Maybe they will just turn the lights out at night so the pier won't draw so much bait to it?

Don't throw rocks (or insults) folks, I'm just kidding!

In my opinion, the powers to be, whoever that is are not going to do anything to solve the piers shark problem until some beach vacationer gets bitten or worse. Let's face it, those sharks are not just hanging out around the pier all day and night. They are crusing up and down the beach as well and sooner or later someone is going to get hurt. When it happens the powers to be will look at each other and say, damn we should have seen that coming. Then they will scramble to figure out a solution. It never ceases to amaze me how that it always seems to takes a tragedy to get governments attention. For whatever reason they seem to prefer to do things based on hindsight rather than being proactive.

"The powers to be" (sic) will gladly do whatever they are bribed to do.