Constitution Captains Say the ‘Taxman’ Is Out of Management as Shark Populations Develop

Anyone who is more than just an occasional saltwater fisherman has almost assuredly met the “taxman.” This nickname is meant to describe any shark that steals a hooked fish (or part of it) off an angler’s line. And with shark populations on the rise in many areas, it seems like more and more saltwater anglers across the East Coast are getting taxed.

Although sharks exist on all major coastlines, they’ve become especially problematic in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast, where many charter captains say they’re losing more fish than ever before. More than a few striped bass have fallen victim to sharks in Chesapeake Bay and the greater New England area, while anglers in the Gulf are often pushed out of their best spots by the sharp-toothed predators.

The warm waters of the South seem to be a particularly troublesome region for fish-stealing sharks, and I’ve experienced this myself on at least a few occasions over the years. I can remember one recent trip on the Mississippi coast, which is a great wade fishing area but one of the most shark-infested places I’ve ever fished. Six of us were in chest deep water, catching one speckled trout after another. Soon a school of sharks showed up, their fins cutting through the surface and sending trout fleeing in every direction.

The gang worked closer and, when the 4- to 6-foot-long sharks started slamming our hooked trout mere feet from our rod tips, we finally gave up and retreated to a beach. That’s when we looked down at the stringers attached to our wade belts and saw that only the trouts’ heads were left. Those fish were devoured within arm’s reach and we never even felt it.

Prowling the Shallows, Patrolling the Depths

Nearly every charter captain working in the Gulf of Mexico has a story like mine. Captain Mike Frenette fishes around Venice, Louisiana, where the rich waters at the mouth of the Mississippi river draw tremendous schools of shrimp and baitfish, along with a wide assortment of gamefish, including cobia, tuna, dolphin, wahoo, and marlin. This also brings a staggering number of sharks to the area, and Frenette says he’s seeing more of them now than ever before.

“Over the past 10 years I’ve seen a tremendous increase in many shark species,” Frenette tells Outdoor Life. “They’re not only in deep water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, but throughout the shallow waters of the Delta.”

Frenette says he’s seen bull sharks ravaging redfish in water as shallow as two feet. And when he’s fishing for bigger bull reds and tuna in deeper water, encounters with sharks are almost a given.

“There are places at the mouth of the Mississippi where giant dusky, bull, and silky sharks attack maybe 80 percent of the yellowfin [tuna] we hook,” Frenette says. “I’ve never seen the number of sharks that we now have in coastal and offshore waters around Louisiana.”

Captains in other states throughout the coastal South will tell you the same. Offshore crews encounter taxmen on a daily basis, and the Florida Keys have about as many sharks as anywhere else in the country. Sharks there see plenty of anglers, so it doesn’t take them long to associate fishing boats with free meals.

“The sharks roaming ledges and reefs are trained to come to fishing boats and hang there waiting for an easy meal,” says Capt. Joel Brandenburg, who runs Ana Banana Charter Fishing in Marathon, Florida. “Feeding sharks with the fish we hook is an everyday occurrence for me and just about every other charter captain I know in the Florida Keys.”

Spoiling Tournaments and Eating World Records

Sharks eating hooked gamefish is bad news whenever it occurs, but there are times when it’s especially problematic — both for anglers and the resource itself. On Friday, for example, Florida held a one-day season for Atlantic snapper, with a NOAA-dictated limit of one fish per angler due to the Fed’s concerns over fish populations.

Legions of sport anglers loaded their boats with fuel, ice, tackle, and friends, and then headed offshore in the hopes of landing a single large snapper per person. Fishing was exceptional by most accounts, but sharks took a murderous toll, according to many local anglers.

“I’d bet my last dollar that everyone who fished off northeast Florida during that one-day snapper season had big trouble boating their hooked snapper, triggerfish, or grouper,” says Capt. Danny Patrick, a longtime offshore angler who fishes out of Jacksonville.    

It’s doubtful whether any of those stolen fish would have broken records, but that exact scenario played out in July 2023, when Florida charter captain Daniel Delph watched a client lose what could have been a world-record snapper to sharks. They were fishing near the Dry Tortugas, 75 miles off Key West, when the angler hooked a heavy fish some 300 feet down. Sharks got to the snapper immediately, and by the time the angler reeled in the fish, the only thing left was a massive red head.

Read Next: Shark Eats What Could Have Been the New World-Record Red Snapper

“Our best guess was that fish whole and intact was about 55 pounds,” Delph says. “It likely would have been an IGFA all-tackle record for red snapper, which is just over 50 pounds.”

Delph says he remembers having troubles with sharks back in the 80s, 90s, and early aughts. But he explains that today, the problem is twice as bad as it was back then, and he’ll often have to move areas or target a different species when the taxmen move in.

“We work hard to avoid sharks,” he says. “We never anchor, and we never fish more than 10 or 15 minutes in one spot. We have to constantly move around to avoid them.”

Some anglers have even lost money to the pesky predators. Sharks are a constant presence at most fishing tournaments, and the 65^th annual Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament out of Morehead City, North Carolina, was no exception. In June 2023, a team of anglers competing in the tourney got the disappointment of their fishing lives when they weighed what would have been the largest marlin caught at the event.  

That 619.4-pound blue marlin would have brought them a $3.5 million payout. But tournament officials noticed a shark bite near the fish’s head, which automatically disqualified it.

Is It Time to Change Shark Management?

Sharks have inhabited the oceans for much longer than we’ve been fishing with rods and reels, and fishermen have always had to pay the taxman on occasion. But many of those anglers will tell you that the problem has gotten particularly bad in recent decades as several laws protecting sharks from harvest have been enacted.

These regulations were made, in part, to balance out the negative perceptions that people held about sharks, and to stem the demand for shark fins abroad. Now, some anglers believe the restrictions have gone too far by replacing scientific management with protectionist ideologies. They say that shark populations have gotten out of control in the absence of pressure, and they’d like to see increased of harvest of certain species — especially bull sharks, which are one of the three shark species most likely to attack a human, though attacks remain statistically rare.

“It doesn’t matter where you are, sharks are everywhere,” Delph says. “So many people think [all] sharks are endangered, but that’s not the case. It’s just so frustrating because it’s devastating to our marine fisheries.”

Sharks are notorious for eating hooked tarpon, another world-renowned game fish that’s a conservation priority in many states. As a result, these fish are almost always released, but that doesn’t mean they always swim way.

Read Next: Great White Shark Tales from Cape Cod’s Charter Boat Captains

“The biggest threat to my charter fishing is when sharks attack tarpon [caught] my clients,” says Capt. Ray Markham, who fishes out of St. Petersburg and has a background in marine biology. “Every year sharks follow the northward tarpon migration. I see guys in waist deep water holding their tarpon for a photo. You won’t catch me in there because I’ve seen 15-foot sharks — hammerheads, bulls, and others — that’ll take a tarpon out of your hand when you’re trying to unhook and release the fish.”

Another longtime and respected Florida guide, Capt. Lenny Moffo remembers holding an estimated 100-pound tarpon boat side one time so his client could get a photo. Moffo pulled the tarpon’s head up as the picture was snapped, but as soon as he released the fish there was an explosion of water, blood, and scales as a shark devoured the trophy fish.

I can remember one outing near the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, when two friends and I experienced some of the best tarpon fishing of our lives, catching 13 tarpon that weighed between 50 to 150 pounds. After losing four of those huge tarpon to taxmen, we quit fishing for the day, not wanting to feed any more quality gamefish to the big hammerheads and bull sharks that were lying in wait.