Whales and Sharks

Right Whales!

Normally during January through April mother whales with their calves tucked close by their side migrate in a northerly direction. It is illegal to approach and remain within 500 yards of a right whale. If a whale surfaces by you, please make way away as quick as you can! There are not that many right whales left and you don抰 want to take the chance of hitting one!



This is a picture that I took many years ago. The beautiful right whale surface right by my boat and I was lucky enough to take the picture. And as we always say, 揂 picture is worth a thousand words!? From this picture you can really see the 揤?spray. The reason for this is a right whale has a double blow hole. So therefore when she blows it comes out as shown above.

Just fishing in the sound during cold water times can offer some strange bite opportunities!



During this time of the year we catch inshore and offshore cold water sharks. And they are the strangest looking sharks that I have ever seen. They are called smooth dog fish and spiny dog fish. I call them 揼rand pa and grand ma?sharks. Here抯 what I would call a 揼rand ma?shark, because it looks like she had misplaced her dentures! Please know that we release all of these sharks back to the wild!



This is a male tail of a spiny dog fish (cold water shark.) Not only does this shark have a spine in the last dorsal, but they also have one in front on its main dorsal fin. Unfortunately, when you grab this shark by the head it has the ability to kind of wrap around your arm. And this would not be a good thing, because the spines might jab you. As you can see they look very strong. So please beware!
We catch these sharks while plain old bottom fishing in the sound with small pieces of squid and shrimp. They are fun to catch on light tackle and as you can see make on heck of a conversation piece!

What does this picture show us?



What does this picture show us? Well, a lot for sure匢 took these pictures from my boat so I really couldn抰 get too close to the real shallow water. The porpoises were staging out in the sound in the deeper water, because they had found some sort of bait fish to roundup. As you can see from this picture that there are formed slicks, which means fish oils have floated to the surface. This dolphin has clearly got its sights on something to eat! The bank in the distance would be a great place to look for a red fish bite.