When the 4am alarm buzzes I feel no temptation to hit snooze. Not on a rare shark fishing day. Joy brews coffee, sizzles bacon and packs lunch while I load fishing gear into our Toyota Corolla. We gobble up our breakfast and hit the road. It’s dark outside but the humid South Carolina air is already warm so we roll the windows down. During the first hour of the drive, from our apartment in Columbia to Walterboro—the self-proclaimed “front porch” of South Carolina’s Lowcountry—we finish our coffees and listen to NPR news.
From Walterboro we follow charming back country roads—strips of black asphalt winding through living tunnels of gnarled oak draped in Spanish moss—toward the coast. A dense fog lingers in the swampy air, glowing golden in the sun’s first rays. We pass decrepit homes and long-closed gas stations juxtaposed among tidy white plantation mansions and well-attended churches until the landscape abruptly opens into an expansive salt marsh crisscrossed with tidal creeks. I draw a deep breath, relishing that pungent yet oddly endearing sulfur-and-salt aroma emanating from the exposed marsh mud.
We crest the high bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway and descend onto Edisto Island. We pull over and park where a culvert crosses one of the tidal creeks. I rig up a couple of light lines and survey the scene. The murky water swirls from the culvert, tugged by an outgoing tide. Frequent splashes disrupt the surface, signifying the presence of baitfish. A white egret wades stealthily in the shallows, poised to nab any fish that comes too close. An older gentlemen bends at the water’s edge, checking his crab traps. Some other folks are cast-netting Menhaden. Joy and I bait our bottom rigs with shrimp and cast them into the current. We get immediately nibbles and catch a pair of Pinfish, which I swiftly kill before placing them on ice in the mini cooler I use for storing bait. After collecting half a dozen Pinfish we are ready to move on. This will allows us to bait our shark rods while we spend time catching more effective bait later. The growing swarm of biting midges has become insufferable and the sun is rising. It’s time to get to set up for big fish. We return to the car and make the short drive along the quaint gravel road leading into the heart of Botany Bay Plantation.
At the parking area we slip off our tennis shoes and replace them with our rubber-soled diving shoes to help protect our feet from the sharp shell fragments that make up Botany Bay Beach. We load ourselves up with awkward-to-carry gear including a pair of 11-foot surf rods, several lighter rods, rod spikes, our food and bait coolers, backpacks, and tackle bags laden with, among other things, several pounds of lead sinkers. What would be a comfortable half-mile hike on the elevated trail through the maritime forest and salt marsh is instead a strained hobble that forces us to stop frequently in order to shift our grip on the burdensome equipment.
We pass skittering fiddler crabs and vocal gulls until we reach the vegetated dune ridge separating the flat marsh from the beach. As usual, the Atlantic Ocean looks brown, churned up by the rolling waves and laden with suspended sand, but the current conditions are mild enough to allow for surf fishing. That’s not always the case at Botany Bay.
Joy and I walk the beach until we locate a large patch of fine mud, exposed now in the low tide. We set our gear down on higher ground, among the fallen oaks and dying palms of this erosional beach. More than fifty feet of beach separate us from the edge of the ocean now but in about six hours the water level will be up nearly seven feet and high tide will be pushing water into this dead forest.
I start setting up by pressing three well-spaced rod spikes firmly into the surf-swashed pluff mud. I then rig up the two heavy surf rods, sliding four-ounce spider weights onto the 65-pound test braided main lines before tying on eight-foot self-crafted wire leaders terminating in #7/0 circle hooks. I check the knots and, satisfied, attach a whole Pinfish to the first hook. I carry the rig down the beach and into the water.
Water flushes into my diving boots as I shuffle forward into the surf. I wade through the breakers into gradually deeper water, bracing as each chilly wave rolls past and sloshes salty water in my face. I hold the reel high to keep it out of the corrosive water and hop along with each wave crest and advance into every trough until I’m about waist-deep. If I go any deeper I won’t be able to cast. I plant my feet and wait for a trough in the waves, then lob the bait and sinker combination as far as out into the ocean as I can. It sails overhead and disappears with a splash. With rod high and bail open I scamper back to the beach, feeding out line while still maintaining tension. I slide the butt of the rod into a rod spike and reel in just a bit to allow the prongs on the spider weight to dig into the substrate and hold the bait in place. I activate the bait clicker and test the drag. Everything seems in order. I repeat the whole process with the second shark rod.
With both heavy lines set I towel off and Joy hands me a yogurt parfait, which I quickly consume without looking away from the rods. The tips bounce back and forth as each passing wave plucks at the lines. I rig up a light line with shrimp and fire the bait out past the breaking waves. After a minute I feel a tap-tap and set the hook and pull in Southern Kingfish, a rather common surf catch in this part of the country.
Kingfish seem to make for a more successful shark bait than Pinfish, so I cut this one in half, reel in one of the shark rods, and switch out the bait. I press through the waves to cast the big bait back out, entrails dangling enticingly out of the head-half of the kingfish. I also swap the bait on the second rod, but as I wade out to cast it back out I hear Joy hollering frantically. I turn and see the other rod is bending hard. Something has already taken the bait and line is peeling off the reel fast!
Joy races to the rod, lifts it from the rod spike, and cranks the reel once to disengage the bait clicker. The drag is set much tighter than the bait clicker, and the abrupt resistance is enough to set the circle hook into the fish’s mouth. Joy can only hang on as the heavy fish runs, pulling line despite the tight drag.
Suddenly a five-foot shark erupts from the surface, spiraling through the air and crashing in a spray of water. Seconds later it leaps again, farther away, but this time when the fish crashes down the line goes limp. Joy reels in and the sinker is still there but the leader ends in kinked and frayed wire. The shark has bitten through the leader and I have learned that 120# wire is not sufficient for adult Blacktip Shark. But today that’s all we have to work with. I finally cast the baited rod and then head up the beach to tie a new rig.
Joy uses the light rod to catch another kingfish while I get the other rod set and soon we are back in action. We take turns pulling in kingfish until we’ve collected an ample supply of fresh shark bait. The tide is coming in fast now, and every twenty minutes we are forced to move the rod spikes up the beach. Now its prime time. The shark fishing at Botany Bay always seems to heat up during the incoming tide.
I look up as a flock of pelicans soars overhead. When I look back to the rods one of them is doubled over. I grab the rod and reel to set the hook. No jumps this time, just a long and powerful run until the fish comes to a complete halt. It feels as if the line has become solidly snagged. But I have experienced this before and I know the line is not hung up a tree or something. I’ve got my work cut out for me, for I have hooked into a massive stingray and it has resorted to a tried-and-true technique—suctioning to the bottom. I imagine its big disc-shaped body hugging the sand, flapping its wing-like fins to bury itself in the sand. My challenge is to get the ray off the bottom and back into the water column.
I pull back on the rod with as much pressure as I can maintain and wait for the ray to move. I thrum my fingers on the taut line to create vibration, a tactic that seems to have some effect. The ray starts swimming again and the battle resumes. It runs parallel to shore and I no choice but to follow it a hundred yards down the beach. The southern sun is beating down hot and sweat is rushing down my forehead and into my eyes. This game of tug-of-war continues for nearly an hour and Joy mercifully holds a water bottle to my mouth. The muscles in my arms are burning but I continue to pump the rod, cranking in bits of line each time. When the ray reaches the breaking waves I catch my first glimpse of it as the tail flips up over its body and out of the water. The fish is close, but it gets a second wind and I have no option but to hang on as it tears off 50 yards of line. It suctions down to the bottom again.
With the tide continuing to rise, and the fight far from over, Joy runs back up the beach to move the rod spikes up again. After another ten minutes I fight the ray back to the breakers and can tell that it is finally tiring. Time for the endgame. With each incoming wave I place my hand on the spool to stop the drag and walk backwards, literally dragging the ray closer with the help of the incoming water. Each time the swash recedes I hold firm until the next push of water. When the ray is finally shallow enough I transfer the rod to Joy, grab the end of long wire leader with my hands and manually haul the ray, which likely weighs upwards of 50 pounds, up the beach and out of the ocean. It flaps its wing-like pectorals and lashes wildly with its stinger-equipped tail. We (which now includes a growing group of spectators) gawk in awe at the massive ocean creature for a moment before I disarm it. I carefully grasp its 6-inch serrated barb with a long-handled pliers and cut the barb off at the base with a knife, rending this Southern Stingray harmless. I flip the unusual fish over and remove the circle hook from the corner of its rubbery lips.
After snapping a few photographs I hand the camera to Joy and she takes a picture of me holding my catch, to the best of my ability, as stingrays have no handles. Then I walk the exhausted ray out past the breakers and release it in the deeper, less turbulent water. It swims away slowly and disappears in the turbid water to join its fellow monsters in the surf.
We end the day on a high note, and head out to set up camp. We’ll try again the following day, this time with new and improved terminal tackle.
But the weather has cooled and the wind has picked up when we arrive at the beach again the next morning. Alas, we fail to catch anything on the big rods. That’s just how surf fishing for monsters goes!
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[Note: the story above is told as a recap of a single outing at Botany Bay but the photos are from multiple different outing between 2010 and 2012. The photos below are some of the highlights of our surf fishing adventures over the two years I lived in South Carolina for grad school.]
BONUS CONTENT
My first adventure surf fishing in South Carolina was with my buddy David Graham (Boundless Pursuit). David showed me the ropes in terms of fishing spots, gear requirements, and techniques so huge shout out to him for the help and friendship! He’s one hell of a big-game angler! Check out his podcast, too!
My first time surf fishing, with David, and I hauled in a big Southern Stingray:
My first shark from the surf was a Bonnethead, which I got within minutes of setting up during a low tide at Botany Bay Beach one day. It was a decent-sized Bonnethead. These are relatively smaller cousins of the hammerhead sharks.
Joy’s parents came to visit us over summer break in 2011 and we spent a day shark fishing at Botany Bay. Being the guest, I let Roger reel in the first one. I still hadn’t caught a Blacktip Shark yet so I was both super thrilled to put him on one and a little jealous of it! But thankfully I got my turn later the same afternoon and caught my first Blacktip Shark! It put on a thrilling show with spinning jumps, and this time my leader held! These sharks were released alive after a few quick photos:
In subsequent trips, I caught some other small Blacktip Sharks. In 2012, my Minnesota buddies Steven and Stephen visited and we fished Botany Bay. We caught a mess of Atlantic Sharpnose Sharks – a smaller, slender shark species with white spots:
Joy caught a couple of shark species from the South Carolina surf that I still haven’t caught. The top shark below is a Blacknose Shark (I’m holding it but she caught it). The bottom shark is Finetooth Shark.
We caught a lot of Southern Stingray. The trick was to slide them up on the beach and carefully pin the whip-like tail down to remove the serrated barb. Without the barb, it’s safe to handle them. The barbs on the big rays could cause a lot of damage, including potentially fatal injuries if you get stabbed the wrong spot! Here’s one of the larger barbs:
Last photo: Me fighting my first Blacktip Shark at Botany Bay Beach. One of my more memorable angling achievements. They are so cool! I got it at late in the evening as we were talking about packing things up and leaving.
