Shark capture causes traffic jam

[vivfox]

Dozens of gawkers gathered while a fisherman in the Keys released a nine-foot shark, tying up traffic and trampling over new native plants.


LOWER MATECUMBE KEY -- All the Miami fisherman wanted to do was measure the lemon shark he had caught and then release it back into the open sea.

Instead, James Fuqua caused a traffic mess on the Overseas Highway when about 50 people parked their cars haphazardly on the road and waded into shallow waters to take pictures, touch the shark or simply get a closer look.

To make matters worse, the gawkers trampled hundreds of native plants -- sea oats, sea-oxeye daisies and sea grapes -- that had been planted in a volunteer beach restoration project over the weekend.

''I didn't mean to cause a commotion,'' Fuqua told law enforcement officials Tuesday at Sea Oates Beach near Mile Marker 75. ``I should have brought the shark in last night, but she was stuck. I couldn't get her off the bottom.''

Fuqua said he has been catching and releasing sharks for sport for 40 years, since he was 14. He estimates he has caught between 600 and 700.

Usually, Fuqua releases the sharks at night, with no fanfare. But this time, with the shark stuck in the deep waters of the Atlantic, ``I had to wait for the sun to come up and the tide to go down.''

At 11 a.m., he waded about 150 yards offshore, in water up to his chest, to pull the shark into shallower water to measure it.

BIG FISH

The result: nine feet, two inches long.

''I was kind of worried when I pulled him off the bottom that he might come at me,'' Fuqua said. ``They are mean, but I don't think they're man-eaters.''

Passersby began to stop and gawk as soon as they noticed what was going on. By the time Win Higgins, a Monroe County sheriff's deputy, arrived on the chaotic scene, about 40 cars had created their own parking spots along the two-lane highway.

People darted across the road. Traffic slowed to a crawl. About 30 people formed a wall in the water around the bewildered shark, still captured on a line about 50 yards offshore.

Higgins pulled out his bullhorn, ordering the onlookers out of the water. ''Hurry up and measure him and get him out of here,'' he barked at Fuqua. ``This is a disaster waiting to happen.''

A DISASTER

If you ask Higgins' boss, Sgt. Roy Bogue, the disaster was already happening. Bogue's 16-year-old son, Jonathan, had spearheaded the beach restoration that included the planting Saturday of 6,800 native species for an Eagle Scout project.

An undercover agent of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission arrived on the scene and ruled that Fuqua had broken no laws, although he said most fishermen in the popular sport set up their lines off bridges.

Fuqua belongs to the South Florida Shark Club, which is committed to conservation and doesn't promote the killing of sharks, according to its website.

Fuqua, who works in The Miami Herald's mailroom, said several other fishermen were also at the same beach Monday night with the same goal of catching sharks for the pure thrill.

ADRENALINE RUSH

Part of the adrenaline rush, Fuqua says, is walking in the dark in waters of two to three feet deep to leave the bait.

At high tide, the water rises to about five feet, and the sharks come close to the shore to feed.

Fuqua, who sleeps roadside in his pickup and awakens when he hears the line move on the reel, says patience -- and sometimes a little barracuda chum -- is the key to catching sharks.

On Monday night, his group also caught an eight-foot, six-inch lemon shark, a six-foot pregnant spinner shark and a small blacktip shark. They released them soon after they caught them.

He caught the lemon shark at the center of Tuesday's hubbub at about 2 a.m.

''She took the line so far offshore that the belly of the line went down on the bottom and got stuck on some sea fans out there,'' he said. ``I waited all night because I knew the shark was still there. It was too deep and dangerous to walk out with a big shark.''

Harold Stevens of Indiana was one of the wading tourists taking pictures of the shark while Puqua was fishing his tape measure out of his truck.

''About five or six people tried to touch the shark, and it took right after the guys,'' Stevens said.

``Everybody started running.''

After Fuqua measured the shark, which he said was pregnant and weighed about 300
pounds, he used a large knife to cut the line. The shark swam away.

''I promise you I won't be shark fishing here again during the day,'' Fuqua told the officers.

http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/497339.html

[David]

There's something fishy about that tail.

[skcin]

Oh David. You slay me.