One day last week, my son told me he was tired of fishing.  This came as something of a shock to me since Elliott fishes pretty much every day.  After picking myself up off the floor, I learned he was not tired of fishing in general, but tired of always targeting Trout, Flounder and Redfish.  A change of species was in order, so we planned a trip for bonnet head sharks.  While bonnet heads are a smaller species of shark, they are plentiful and a great game fish. 

Our tackle for the great bonnet head adventure was 8 pound class bait casting gear.  Rigging was simple.  A short 20 pound leader threaded through a 1/4 ounce barrel sinker and tied to a 3/0 circle hook.  For bait we used pieces of a blue crab.  Rather than employ our normal run and gun search tactic (to much like fishing for Trout, Flounder and Redfish), we anchored near a shallow oyster bar at dead low tide and waited for a bonnet head to swim by.  Shortly after the tide turned, we spotted a bonnet head working its way towards us.  Elliott cast the crab 10 feet ahead of the cruising shark.  It slowly swam up to the bait and ate it.  I thought to myself, darn that was easy.  Right about then, the shark made a blistering run towards the anchor line and broke off.  Not the desired result, but it was fun while it lasted.  We re-rigged, had a cold drink and waited on the next shark to pass.  A couple of Redfish came within casting distance.  We lost our heads (as we were targeting sharks) and cast to them.  Shortly after releasing the Redfish, another bonnet head swam by the oyster bar.  Same routine, Elliott cast 10 feet of the shark which swam directly to the crab and ate it.  This time (rather than thinking darn that was easy), I pulled up the anchor.  Good thing, because the bonnet head took a couple of laps around the boat.  Shortly after releasing the shark, we saw lightening in the distance and decided to head home.  The great bonnet head adventure came to a close.  It was great fun and an excellent change of pace.