Bull sharks in fresh water

redneck_billcollector · Jun 4, 2009

I remember hearing my grandfather talking about bull sharks (he would just call them sharks) would be caught in down town Albany back when he was a kid, this was before the dam was built down at Seminole. I always thought he was kidding me, one day I was at the library reading through the old local paper on microfisch and sure enough, I came across some old articles about them catching them down town near where they used to dispose of offal from slaughtered beef. (about where river front park is now)

I have since done alot of research and apparently bulls will run rather far up a river, one was caught in Illinois on the Mississippi not so long ago. Has anyone that lives on some of the bigger rivers in Ga. that havent been dammed ever caught a bull shark up in fresh water? I read somewhere that bull sharks like to spawn in fresh water to keep the pups away from other sharks, sharks are rather canabalistic. That is apparently the origin of the only fresh water shark, the lake nicaragua shark, they were bull sharks that got land locked. I was thinking about going over on the Altamaha and seeing if I could catch one. I would love to hear from any of yall that have caught them in fresh water.

jonkayak · Jun 4, 2009

Their was a show on the other day called "River Monsters" and the guy talked about them being in fresh water. He went 80 miles up stream and above a 13' dam and was abel to catch one. He said that they had been trapped ever since a flood and the one he caught was a baby so he claimed that they must be reproducing in freshwater. He was in Australia though not the USA.

Also on the show Monster Quest they went looking for Bull Sharks in Freshwater and found them in Louisiana some 50+ miles inland. Makes you think twice about jumping in the local stream.

Catching one in Ga. actually sounds like a lot of fun.

Tugboat1 · Jun 5, 2009

A small correction. Lake Nicaragua is not landlocked; it is connected to the Caribbean by the Rio Colorado. I've read that there used to be a shark processing plant in Granada in the 50's but the population was overfished. A good read is "Savage Shore" by Edward Marriott and Randy Wayne White tackled this question in a short story titled, " The Sharks of Lake Nicaragua".

I've always wondered the same thing here in the southeast. There are ******arks .... do they swim upstream here as well?

redneck_billcollector · Jun 5, 2009

I have caught them in the Ochlochnee (sp?) in Wakula co, about 100 or so yards from where you had to have a freshwater fishing licsences on trot lines set for cats and turtles when I was a kid using cut mullet for bait. But we would catch redfish, trout and flounder in the same area along with largemouths (green trout as my grandpa called them) red breast, channel catfish, gar and speckled pearch so I never thought anything about it.

germag · Jun 5, 2009

Bull Sharks have been caught as far upstream in the Mississipi River as St. Louis. They also have been reported in the Illinois River and a 6'9" female was caught in Lake Michigan on the Chicago shoreline. It's not really a commonly reported occurrence in the U.S., but you can be sure it happens more often than is seen by humans and reported. It's enough to make you think twice about jumping out of the boat and going swimming in the Mississippi anywhere south of Alton, Ill.

They are well known for extensively using fresh water waterways within 100 miles of the coast. When I was growing up in Louisiana, it was not at all uncommon for them them to be reported in the mouth of the Mississipi and occasionally upstream as far as Natchez.

The most amazing encounter to me was one that was found in the Amazon in Peru about 2600 miles upstream in the foothills of the Andes.

As far as the Lake Nicaragua sharks are concerned, they were once thought to be land-locked and considered a separate species. They have recently been found to actually be using the river to get back and forth from the lake to the ocean...they jump the rapids of the Rio San Juan just like salmon. Sharks tagged in the lake are later being caught in the ocean.

redneck_billcollector · Jun 5, 2009

Hmmm, think of the looks you would cause sitting on the bank of the river in Macon with some heavy tackle and folks asking if you were fishing for big cats and you answered "Nope, I am shark fishing". They would think you were a nut, then think of the look on their face when you landed a 4 or 5 ft bull shark. I think there is a shark fishing trip to Macon in the future for me. I wonder if bonita would work as well there as it does in the ocean....

redneck_billcollector · Jun 5, 2009

Tugboat1 said:
I've always wondered the same thing here in the southeast. There are ******arks .... do they swim upstream here as well?

At one time they must have, or else they wouldn't have caught them in the Flint river in downtown Albany Ga. which is closer to the Gulf of Mexico than it is to the Atlantic.

germag · Jun 5, 2009

redneck_billcollector said:
At one time they must have, or else they wouldn't have caught them in the Flint river in downtown Albany Ga. which is closer to the Gulf of Mexico than it is to the Atlantic.

Where they can get upstream, they will. If a river empties into salt water where bull sharks are present (which is pretty much every tropical and temperate coast in the world), you can bet they venture into that river.

7 point · Jun 5, 2009

A 6 footer was cought in lake monroe in sanford fl about 20 years ago witch is joined to st johns river they ve also cought small hammerheads there lake monroe is A long ways from the ocean ive heard how certian fish can adapt from salt to fresh as they swim up stream .

redneck_billcollector · Jun 5, 2009

Here is an interesting link, it has a picture of some divers from the Wisconsin equivalent of our DNR that caught a bull shark under ice in a truck cab that fell through the ice a couple of weeks before. They tagged it and released it, but took some pictures of the shark, it is the durndest picture I have seen in a while. http://surferjerry.com/uncategorized/sharks-in-minnisota-and-wisconsin/

Now I have only been ice fishing a couple of times up in Alaska, I could not imagine being on a lake in Wisconsin and catching something like that. It does go on to say the shark was rather lethargic and was easy to catch, seeing how they are cold blooded, I reckon it just didn't have too much energy. One of the bloggers about the article points out it is an april fools article, I googled it and found one article saying it was an april fools article. The date of that post and article was in October though, there was a similar article that was printed on april 1 though.

slightly grayling · Jun 5, 2009

As I understand it Lake Nicaragua is full of them!

germag · Jun 5, 2009

slightly grayling said:
As I understand it Lake Nicaragua is full of them!

In 1968 University of Nebraska Biology grad students captured, tagged and released over 2,000 of them in Lake Nicaragua........

slightly grayling · Jun 5, 2009

I'm not surprised....I have heard there are swordfish and Tarpon there also...

germag said:
In 1968 University of Nebraska Biology grad students captured, tagged and released over 2,000 of them in Lake Nicaragua........

redneck_billcollector · Jun 5, 2009

When I was in the army, I caught tarpon way up the shagras river(sp?) in Panama while I was fishing for peacock bass. Snook too, nothing big but a good many of them.

Twenty five ought six · Jun 6, 2009

You will occasionally see a shark fin in the Altamaha above Brunswick. I'm trying to remember how far up I've seen them, but can't right now.

Certainly is a pucker factor in fishing for bream and seeing a fin cruise by out in the middle of the river. Folks catch mullet as far up as Baxley, so no telling how far up the sharks really go.

The movie "Jaws" is based on a true story of a great white that went inland on a couple of New England rivers and gobbled up some people.

Resica · Jun 6, 2009

Here is some reading on the shark attacks of 1916 in New Jersey. Some of the attacks were 16 miles inland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916

jonkayak · Jun 6, 2009

The second link really makes you think. Just look at the pics.

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showtopic=6880&pid=56405&st=0&#entry56405

http://www.nokomiseast.org/yard/light/creeksharks.html

Nicodemus · Jun 6, 2009

We`ve caught mullet in the Oconee, between Clarks Bluff, and the 280 bridge.

Twenty five ought six · Jun 8, 2009

jonkayak said:
The second link really makes you think. Just look at the pics.

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showtopic=6880&pid=56405&st=0&#entry56405

http://www.nokomiseast.org/yard/light/creeksharks.html

Look at the last picture on the second link.

That shark might be "nearly" dormant, but I don't think I would hold it in my lap, with its mouth right next to a co-worker's family jewels.

GusGus · Jun 8, 2009

Bulls have been found in the upper portion of the Mississippi.

Bull sharks in fresh water

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