Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Last week, I noticed on a local social media fishing site that a fellow had posted photos of two sand tigers and one big sandbar shark that he and some buddies had caught in the surf along Assateague Island. Knowing that over the years there's been a lot of bad stuff done to sharks on the beach, I looked closely at the photos to see if the guys who caught the fish were properly handling the protected and prohibited species in a manner that gave the critters the best chance of surviving the catch and release process.
While I have no idea what happened before or after the cameras clicked, the pictures showed the sharks down close to the water on the wet and hard-packed sand, where the waves would roll up and probably help to keep the animals cool and wet. It looked as though the hooks and leaders had been removed, and no one was sitting on or prying open the mouth of the sharks for the classic "tough guy hero shot." Assuming the anglers did their landing, dehooking and photo shoot quickly, all three photos pretty much depicted how sharks caught from the beach should be handled.
It didn't surprise me that even though the post was only two hours old there were already 66 comments and while I should have known better, I went ahead and started reading the reactions by other fishermen to the shark anglers post. Comments ranged from "hey, nice catch, way to go", to "that's against the law - you probably killed those sharks", to "you should have killed those sharks"! Pardon the slight pun, but what started out as a couple of guys showing off a few cool pictures of their catch turned into a "feeding frenzy" of "experts" who apparently felt compelled to show how little they really knew about what they were talking about. Then, as so often happens in these wacky social media quarrels, the folks making the comments started preying on each other with a lot of bad advice, bad language and a whole lot of bad grammar! Where in the world do those people come from?
Choosing not to be associated with such a messy chum bucket I kept my comments to myself. However, after reading them I came away with the realization that there are still a lot of fishermen out there who have no clue what the local shark regulations are. In this particular foray, what stirred the pot the most was the disagreement as to whether or not a shark could be brought out of the water prior to its release. The sharks in question were caught on the Maryland side of Assateague Island, so in this case Maryland regulations applied and while Delaware has on their books that sharks may not be removed from the water, in Maryland that law has not "yet" gone into effect. Therefore, the anglers in the photos did NOT break the law when they brought their catches out of the water. I'm not suggesting that anglers should bring sharks out of the water, I'm only saying that to date, the practice has not been outlawed in Maryland - well sort of, there's actually more to it than that.
This winter, Maryland DNR proposed some new shark regulations that will become law sometime in the next few weeks. To quote from the Maryland Register, Volume 46, Issue 10, dated May 10, 2019: "For any shark that is to be released, the proposed action prohibits sitting on a shark, holding the shark's mouth open, putting the shark on dry sand, putting the shark on a boat deck, or using a gaff…"
I'll circle back to the "sitting" part in a minute, but for now let's focus on the "dry sand" and "boat deck" parts of the regulation. Notice that it specifies "dry" sand, which means that sharks must not be brought out of the wash area of the surf line. This will help keep the fish wet, cool, help prevent damage to their gills from sand and their spines from being dragged up the beach. For those fishing from a boat, unless they have a special Research or Collection Permit, anglers may not remove from the water sharks that are going to be released - period! In federal waters that regulation has been in effect for a number of years. Maryland is just now bringing their laws in sync so that anglers won't have to worry about fishing under different rules when they're on one side of the three-mile line or the other.
Maryland's new regulations also state; "Delaying the release for any period of time longer than necessary to remove the hook or other fishing tackle is prohibited." In other words, no long photo sessions! If you want to get a picture of your catch it's going to have to happen as you're in the process of releasing the shark, not "instead" of releasing the shark. All this, of course, is to help ensure that sharks have the best chance to survive the catch and release process, both from the beach and from a boat.
Through the wonderful world of social media, it has become all too obvious that there's a small fraction of fishermen who are more interested in getting their "hero shot" for the internet and doing stupid things with sharks rather than doing the right thing with their catch by getting it back in the water in the proper manner and as quickly as possible. That’s why the folks at DNR actually wrote a regulation to make it against the law to "sit on a shark". Yes, as stupid as it sounds, over the years enough anglers have decided that the photo they want to remember their catch by is of themselves sitting on the shark that Maryland was compelled to actually outlaw the practice! Like I said, where in the world do these people come from?
Maryland's new shark regulations will also require the use of circle hooks for all shark fishing, something that boat anglers holding an HMS permit have had to comply with since last year. Besides these new laws, there is a whole suite of state and federal regulations in addition to permit requirements that anglers must comply with if they want to engage in the fishery. And by all means, if you decide to post anything about your shark fishing adventures on the Internet you'd better have your ducks in a row or you're sure to be caught up in another online feeding frenzy!
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center. During the winter months, Capt. Mark runs charters in the Lower Keys.
