Texas Shark Fishing For Traditional Saltwater Game Fish

Texas shark fishing can be an exciting alternative to fishing for traditional saltwater game fish and can provide you with an opportunity to battle some really big fish.  All sharks are predators, but are also scavengers ready to take advantage of any easy meal that presents itself. Sharks are voracious carnivores that are always on the prowl for food and their gills only function when they are moving forward, so they spend their lives in constant motion.

Sharks congregate in places where there are large numbers of smaller fish that they can feed on, so the key to finding sharks is to first know where to look for other fish. There are three major areas to hunt for sharks, and these areas are frequented by sharks of differing feeding habits. The areas are: close inshore and in estuaries, coastal areas near islands and structures, and offshore in the open ocean.

The close inshore shark species, such as bull sharks, sand sharks and some varieties of hammerheads can be caught off fishing piers or jetties right off the coast or in the waters of bays. These sharks hang out close to shore to feed on mullet and other shoaling fish that concentrate there. During the months of June through October large schools of shark, such as Blacktips, Tiger, Bull, and Hammerheads converge on the shallow waters of the Galveston beachfront.

These fish can run from 10 to 350 lbs. And range in lengths from 3 to 8 feet. During the summer it is not uncommon to catch 10 to 30 sharks.  You might catch one of these shark species inadvertently while fishing for smaller game. Although many of these sharks are small, it’s not uncommon to catch really big ones close to land. Serious inshore shark fishermen fish the piers and jetties at night, “chumming” the water by dumping in buckets of cut-up fish or other bloody meat to attract sharks.

The second category of Texas shark fishing locations is the coastal area. This usually means areas that are accessible to fishermen with boats, and can be any area off the coast that has some natural or man-made structure to attract fish, and consequently, the sharks that feed on them. The coast of Galveston and Freeport are two popular spots for world class shark fishing in Texas.

Barrier islands are also a good area, and the passes between closely-spaced barrier islands can be especially good on an incoming tide, when sharks hang out waiting on the sea to bring them their dinner.

Other areas in this category are underwater coral reefs, which support a vibrant ecosystem of animals at every stage of the food chain and sharks at the top end. In the Gulf of Mexico and other areas, man-made structures such as offshore oil drilling rigs are also a haven for marine life and are very productive locations to fish for big sharks.

The open ocean is home to pelagic sharks, like the mako and whitetip. Many of these sharks spend their entire lives far from land, roaming the open oceans in search of food. They might be the hardest sharks for offshore fishermen to locate, but can sometimes be found in large numbers in a “feeding frenzy” caused by schooling prey species.