Simple question...What is a good bait for catching sharks? We plan on taking the boat out about 200yds. past the T-piers in a few weeks when our big rods and reels come in..

-Thanks

Hardheads...cut the meaty chunk out of the middle like a Kingfish steak (no fins!) leave skin on, hookup and go! Good Luck!

Alrighty, thanks very much!

Also look at this site:
http://groups.msn.com/TEXASSHARKFISHING/homepage.msnw

or


http://www.coast-shark.com/

bonnita and mullet are both very stinky, they make great shark bait.

Try and keep alot of chum in the water, and you shouldnt have much trouble bringing in the sharks.

thanks for all the great replies all!

i have been told that sting rays are best for shark bait...... ive never fished for sharks but ive been told they work wonders..... try it

jacks, stingray, ladyfish, mullet, whiteing, shad, and croker. are great bait. make sure you have a good strong cable leader. I use leaders any where from 6ft to 12ft. i use 480#, 600# and 800# 49 strand cable. For hooks I use mustad 16/0, 18/0 and 20/0 circle hooks. Braid 17/0 cricle hooks also work well.

Gigger08 has it right ... especially with the jack crevalle and the ladyfish. Pogeys, if you can get them fresh, are also great.

We've been testing a relatively new XL "Magnum" size Black Salty live baitfish for over a year now, and the sharks eat them up (which, in many situations, we have considered a curse as much as a blessing, especially when we are fishing for king mackerel, cobia, tarpon, etc.). Bull reds in the surf eat them like candy, too.

If you have a big ice chest in which you can put dechlorinated freshwater, and a bubble aerator, you are good to go. The big live baits are really neat in that they also target live-bait-preferred species like tarpon (I just posted an image of a tarpon caught last Monday out of Port Charlotte, Florida, on the photo gallery at www.blacksalty.com. We caught a Grand Slam in a little over four hours ... tarpon, redfish and snook.)

It sure wouldn't hurt my feelings if we had snook in the Galveston area (dream on, eh?). Hey, after all, the mangrove snapper are all the way up to POC and Matagorda now, so who knows?

Gigger08 is right-on with the circle hook advice, too.

Good luck, and let me know if I can help.

Be safe ...

Boz

THanks everyone...great replies

You are more than welcome.

Forgot to mention it ... and they are hard to come by ... for for either bait or creating a nice chum slick, fresh bonita are incredibly effective.

I use them, when I can get them, punctured and tied to the tail just off the transom, then drift an XL Salty out into the scented area.

Already stoked by that blood smell, when a shark picks up the desperate transmissions of a freshly-hooked live bait on a hook (be it a Salty, or whatever you have alive and on-hand), it's as close to a can't miss fish inducer as you can get.

Good luck ...

Boz

i forgot get cownose ray if you can. they seem to work better, but if you can only get the normal brown one they also work.