Hammerheads - Part 1

The wind was blowing too hard for a campfire to be safe with everything so dry, so I sat in the dim lantern light and listened to the sounds of the wind, coyotes, and occasionally the owl. As I looked down I saw the tattoo of the hammerhead shark that has been poised there swimming towards me for the past thirty-four years and I grinned. I don't think I ever look at it without grinning. Hammerheads have held a very special place in my heart from the moment I first saw one and interestingly enough as the years pass many of my most profound fishing memories involve them.

As I have always considered the coyote to be my "spirit helper" on the land, over time I came to look at the greater hammerhead as my "spirit helper" of the sea - no longer just a worthy adversary to be hunted down and killed simply for the challenge and to show my peers what a great fisherman I am. It was then that I had the tattoo put on my hand and shortly thereafter lived on the beach for one and a half years. Within a year I quit killing sharks.

I guess the hammerhead is the greatest paradox in my life. They inspire a feeling of wonder and awe in me every time I see one and I'm instantly thrilled yet at the same time I instantly feel as if I'm looking at death incarnate; the living embodiment of death itself. I've had some really amazing encounters with them over the years and I thought I'd share a few with you.

I was in my teens and totally addicted to fishing off Bob Hall Pier. It was mid-morning on a dead calm, mid-August day and there was not a whisper of a breeze and the Gulf was as slicked off as a pool table. A number of us were gathered on the end "T" and I was standing in the center talking with friends when a loud thump was heard from the south side of the "T" and the entire structure suddenly lurched back and forth. This happened two more times during the short time it took me to walk to the south rail, and when I put my hands on the rail and looked down, my heart stopped. Everyone had been really talking up a storm but it became totally quiet as everyone starred in awe at the scene below.

A gigantic hammerhead was on the surface of the sea with its nose up against a piling. As we watched in disbelief it backed up about two feet and rammed the piling as hard as it could and then turned its head first to one side and then the other steadily chewing on the piling. We could literally hear the popping sound of the shark's teeth as they broke on the piling as well as see them breaking. The attack was focused on only one piling; the center one along the south side of the "T".

She backed off and charged and attacked the piling a total of ten times. Blood could be seen trailing from her gills and towards the end of the display it appeared she was exhausted and she lay still a moment and then, as if in slow motion, turned and swam away. Three anglers grabbed surf casting outfits and snagged her with large three and a half ounce spoons. The line slowly disappeared off the reels at first but continued gaining speed and they were screaming when the lines broke at the spools.

The pilings were eight feet apart but the fish's head was too wide to go between two of them. Her length was difficult to guess because she was so close but everyone agreed she was somewhere between eighteen and twenty feet and way over 1,200 pounds. No one said much for a while; as the emotions we were feeling and what we had seen was too much for words. When we did resume our normal chatter all us youngsters overwhelmed the old timers with questions about the incident.

One elder finally had enough and said, "She's big and old and mean and the way she sees it the sea is hers. All of it. And if something doesn't move out of her way she takes it personal and she moves it; even a piling. She's death itself moving along in the sea and making up her own rules as she goes and fearing nothing." It's easy to see how that would stick in a youngster's mind.

Again on a deathly hot and still August day decades later with the sea resembling a sheet of glass a couple and I were on a charter far down the PINS beach front. They were more interested in enjoying the day than in fishing and that was a good thing as the fishing was just about as slow as it gets. While awaiting a breeze to give some life to the sea I knew where a school of skipjacks had been hanging out in a place where deep water came unusually close to the shore itself. We traveled to that location and I stood beside the customer and took skipjacks off his lure and returned them to the sea when two tarpon rolled just a few feet from us.

Soon I had seen at least five separate tarpon with two being well over 100 pounds so I rigged a leader for them on a Penn 6/0. Now realize that while we were only knee deep in the water the tarpon were in deep water although only 10-15 feet from us. Well, I got baited up and reared back to cast when without warning there was white water everywhere and a tremendous explosion immediately in front of me knocked me off my feet. As I was falling backwards I saw a shark's tail about five feet long come up in the air about seven feet in front of me. A REALLY big Hammerhead had snuck up on those tarpon and me and killed one only feet from me without ever being seen.

Astonished, I sat on my butt in the surf and watched a large whirlpool made by the shark's tail when it slapped the water. And then it was as magically gone just as it had magically arrived leaving no trace other than the pictures forever burned into my memory. I hope you enjoyed sharing these memories with me and I assure you I've save the best ones for next time.

I always get so tickled about that tattoo. At least once every couple of weeks someone will say, "Billy, why would anyone put a shark tattoo upside down on their hand." It cracks me up, then I can't help but laugh and I reply, "Because I put it there for me to look at; not you, and to me its right side up."

Lifelong shark and beach fisherman, Floyd Scroggans Jr., was killed in mid-January. He is survived by his son, Floyd Scroggans III. Floyd was as fearless on or in the water as any man I've ever known and a tough act to follow as a fisherman. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.

"If we don't leave any there won't be any." -Capt. Billy L. Sandifer