Bluffton, SC sharks

[scfireman]

Hey yall... I have lived in the bluffton HHI area for a few years now, and am looking for a good place to catch some decent sharks... I do not have a boat and am looking for somewhere around shore or a pier... I have been going to a local dock, but I haven't had any luck catching any sharks.. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[Tarpon4me]

I fish out of Murrells inlet, a little further up the SC coast. OK, so first of all, where is this local dock located? If it's inside a bay or inlet, you're probably not going to have very good luck. It's not that they aren't there, it's the fact they aren't there in numbers. One of the best places to shark fish is off the beach. You've got to get your bait past the breakers, but many of our coastal sharks feed in knee to waist deep water. Before you do that though, make sure you check with your local DNR office to make sure it's legal to shark fish from the bank in your county. I know it's legal to shark fish in Georgetown county, but not Horry county.

Next, you need fresh bait. Sharks are not mindless feeders. Fresh is best, regardless what you're fishing for in the ocean. If you can deploy a chum block, do it. Your odds of tempting a shark to your bait will improve ten fold. Something bloody and oily works best, like fresh mackerel, baracuda, sting ray, or pogeys. Sting rays and pogeys are the easiest to obtain.

One of the last things to consider is, what the hell are you going to do with it when you catch one? You can't exactly toss a 7' shark in the cooler. Make sure you're up on your shark identification too. And make sure you have a migratory species lisence. Some sharks can not be kept, others require that migratory lisence. It's not worth the steep fine because you didn't do your homework.
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