Amber Hanick, UR- Here Sharky Sharky Sharky

Hello all,

Rigging the rods

Last Friday 3/3/17 was our second day in the field at Ponce Inlet. Our mission for the day was to shark fish off the shoreline of the Inlet and reel in as many sharks as possible to get an A in the class according to Dr. Woodall haha. As we arrived on the shoreline and began scoping out our field site conditions and area, we concluded first that the pier was no longer going to be the site of our fishing as the whipping wind gusts were crashing waves against the jetty and making the pier unsafe for fishing. We then moved along to site 2, the high energy habitat we seined on our last day in the field. This area was a lot more passive as far as waves and wind was concerned and the only issue now was sand being carried by the wind ending up in places sand should not be. We rigged all the rods up, baited them and began casting our lines out into the inlet. Everyone waited anxiously for one of the rods to show that something was biting and had gotten caught on the circle hooks. Unfortunately, this was not the case and the next 2 and a half hours were spent with lines casted out, close eyes on the rods, but also was bonding time with our classmates and time spent having fun no matter what our field day results turned out to be, and that's what I call optimism in unfortunate circumstances. I believe that our catch was unsuccessful due to the whipping wind gusts at time exceeding 25 mph and the currents being high energy and strong at our site which caused difficulty in luring in the sharks. Since the wind played such a huge factor in our activity and caused changes in our original plans, I decided to create a line graph for my "fun graph" that showed speeds over our study time at the inlet. Even if our day in the field didn't go as desired or as we planned, it was undeniably an adventure, learning experience, and a great day with lots of laughs and fun!
Over and Out,
Amber

Enjoying our fun in the sun!