Lemon shark lovers : Reef & Pelagic Fishing Trip Reports

max · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 9:52 pm Post subject: Lemon shark lovers

check out these little puppies ,they came chewing the berley pot at Lee Point & you could pat them at the back of the boat but no one wanted pain bad enough to feed em a hook

Turtle · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 9:53 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

Can you swim with em? They got no teeth right? Ive only ever seen 1 when I was a kid..

aussiemaps · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:01 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

So many of the grey suits getting around that way at the moment. makes chasing macs almost pointless.

DOUG · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:19 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

Yeah anyone who says sharks are becoming extinct haven't been fishing much
I'm doing my part for the count going down although I don't really harm the old lemon as I have never had one touch a hooked fish !!

balou · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:41 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

They are out of control at the moment at lorna and dundee.
Are they protected? I'm assuming that they are or the not very good to eat.

Matt Flynn · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

They are tawny nurse sharks, lemon sharks look like whaler sharks and have more obvious teeth.

Tawny ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawny_nurse_shark

Lemon ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_shark

Everyone in Darwin seems to call tawnys lemons :mrgreen:

Tawnys have apparently got very powerful jaws and can suck an octopus or cray out of a crevice.

Wikipedia says tawnys are "an esteemed gamefish" ... this kinda kills Wikipedia's cred :lol:

There is a picture on the web somewhere of dozens of them schooling, maybe they do the same off the NT.

cuddlescooper · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:57 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

There are more and more of these sharks getting around because there is more and more fishing pressure being put on spots. There are more people berlying the water. The sharks become used to an easy feed everytime you hook a fish. This has been proven time and time again on charter fishing marks. When a charter operator flogs a mark you know it because the sharks turn up. This was a lesson I learnt early on. If you keep flogging the one spot eventually the sharks will become residential.

The second factor is time of year. A lot of sharks turn up when the trawlers are working. There bycatch attracts them. Especially at Lorna Shoals.

balou wrote:

They are out of control at the moment at lorna and dundee.
Are they protected? I'm assuming that they are or the not very good to eat.

No they are not protected but have you ever tryed to put a knife to a Tawny nurse shark? Its like cutting into a forrest giant tree with a swiss army knife. Lets just say you wont get far. And eating them is like a boot.

Lats · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:59 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

The real lemon sharks that Matt was talking about and their distribution around the world

DOUG · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:07 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

I dunno so much about fishing pressure I know a couple of spots that I have found not been given so dunno how many people would fish it but I think plenty of sharks means a good Eco system down there
The other night we got to our spot started setting the gear up and in my deck lights we allready had 3 massive bronze whalers around the boat with out a bait in the water just always hold on that area and it's 90km off shore
The old lemon hangs on most reefs up here though!! Out sail city the other day we had a 3m whaler come through and swipe a tricky and that was the last I saw of him biggest whaler I have ever seen out that way they are thick from what I have heard ..

Matt Flynn · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:09 pm Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

Interesting that the map doesn't show the real lemon sharks in northern Australia, I can think of three captures - one at a comp at Dundee, my brother hooked one off Lee Point, and I saw Bob Morris hook one in a creek on the north Vernon Island. Unless there is a very similar species ... I think they are common off Darwin.

cuddlescooper · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:01 am Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

DOUG wrote:

I dunno so much about fishing pressure I know a couple of spots that I have found not been given so dunno how many people would fish it but I think plenty of sharks means a good Eco system down there
The other night we got to our spot started setting the gear up and in my deck lights we allready had 3 massive bronze whalers around the boat with out a bait in the water just always hold on that area and it's 90km off shore
The old lemon hangs on most reefs up here though!! Out sail city the other day we had a 3m whaler come through and swipe a tricky and that was the last I saw of him biggest whaler I have ever seen out that way they are thick from what I have heard ..

Sharks are in plague proportions in that area naturally. It is a hard area to gauge this theory on. :roll:

I how ever wouldnt hold my breath that the marks out wide dont get fished Doug. I can tell you that Arafura have a lot of ground out there as the old skipper worked on trap boats and he used to run over that ground a lot on there way to WA waters. They also get trapped from time to time. That whole area out towards flat tops gets a fair touch up surprisingly enough.

I am however more refering to the close in marks around Long lost, Lee Point, Sail City, Lorna Shoals, Bass Reefs and such. They get flogged every day and the amount of sharks that are now residents on these places (each individual Shoal patch) is getting out of control. When we first fished a lot of these grounds it was out of control for reef fish and we hardly ever got sharked. After fishing them for periods of time more and more sharks appeared. This became even more aparent on mackerel grounds. The Pinnacles, Bass Mac, mac Mountain, Smith reef and the vernons (ask Peter Zeroni or bigfoot on this one) Lee point and many others.

I have lots of ground wide of Dundee and have never seen a shark on them yet. I get plenty of Goldies and Reds off them. They are also covered in macs and bait.
I only fish each mark twice a year to keep them in as good a nick as is possible. This has been good for a few years now. :cool:

DOUG · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:12 am Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

Yeah no doubt they get fished but no where near as much pressure as a local spot which is what I'm saying I have never seen another boat there tho and on weekends also
But to say sharks are used to people out that wide is highly unlikely say it gets fished once a fortnight the sharks won't become dependent on that where as the close in reefs and wrecks that get fished 3 to 4 times a day every day yes they would get used to that!!!
Oh and not flat top either Pete don't wanna give the exact area out

On flat top itself I never got sharked at all but alot of juvenile fish whether that makes a difference to there feeding ??? Or they hang around the more quality size fish on the reefs who knows ?

cuddlescooper · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:32 am Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

[quote="DOUG"]
Oh and not flat top either Pete don't wanna give the exact area out

quote]

Niether would I Doug but its a bit like corroboree firing if you know what I mean!

passenger279 · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:17 am Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

Maybe the below species explains the confusion. Habitat seems right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicklefin_lemon_shark

Maybe a mix of these and the tawny nurse shark get caught up here.

So many sharks, oh my god.

Matt Flynn · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:19 am Post subject: Re: Lemon shark lovers

Passenger279, that may be the answer, I've got pix of one of the lemon sharks hooked up, from memory it had the long pectorals.

Tawnys will roll up at remote Kimberley anchorages when a boat lobs, they are used to being fed by yachties and tour boats.

Probably most sharks within a 100km radius of Darwin would associate boats with food. I've seen it out in open water when you stop, they cruise up to the boat. If only golden snapper were the same.

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