February 2, 2012
Each year, DJ Sexton gives his key employees the day off and sends them fishing in Ft. Lauderdale. On this year’s trip up the New River in January, a good run of landing jack ended when a six-foot bull shark helped himself.
“We were up past Cable [Marine], almost to 441,” said Jeff Maggio, charter captain with Lunkerdog Charters. “We were fishing a big school of jack. We’d caught a half dozen already. He could feel the jack getting reeled in and came and got one.”
Fish in distress give off electrical pulses, which opportunistic sharks respond to, said Sexton, who is also vice president of the Sportfishermen of Broward and has lived and fished on the New River for years.
“They don’t go around actively hunting fish,” said Sexton, manager at Certified Metal Finishing in Pompano Beach. “Sharks respond to a fish in distress. … The shark picks up on it [the electrical pulses] and it’s game over.”
He knows sharks are in the river, but he has never actually seen one. He thinks they might be more prevalent now perhaps because it’s the dry season and the water is a little less brackish, leading the sharks farther up river.
Maggio sees them in the New River and Intracoastal Waterway all the time. He also spends more than 200 days a year on Ft. Lauderdale’s waters.
“It’s not rare, but you wouldn’t think they’re back there,” he said.
Maggio’s photos have made the rounds with South Florida fishing enthusiasts, and at least one business manager along the New River has ordered his employees to stay out of the water “during business hours.”
“It’s no different than being on the beach here when the mullet run in winter,” Sexton said. “In a helicopter, you can see the sharks right off shore.
“They don’t post a threat, but it’s sure an eye opener.”
About the Author
