Fishermen are dangling dead sharks from Pismo Pier. Is it legal?
Seagulls flew low overhead as Anthony Pinedo strung a line through his fishing pole on Wednesday morning.
He shows up at the Pismo Beach Pier almost every day to fish for what’s in season.
And this month, he’s catching thresher sharks.
Pinedo and his friends follow all state and local fishing regulations — but their practices have left some passerby a little bit queasy.
When they catch a shark, they pull it up to the pier, bleed it into the designated grate, then lower the shark on a line back into the ocean to preserve it while they finish their day of fishing. The cold, salty water prevents the shark meat from spoiling, he said.
“That’s the worst thing — to have a good-tasting fish and to have it go bad,” Pinedo said.
At the end of the day, he takes the shark home for dinner. He’ll only catch the amount of fish he can eat or share with his friends and family, he said.
“We catch what we’re gonna eat that night,” he said.
Pinedo is always happy to talk fishing with people on the pier. He enjoys showing kids how to cast a fishing line and explaining his process to passersby.
“We try to educate people, especially with the families,” he said.
But Pinedo’s openness didn’t comfort everyone. Some people took one look at the shark carcass and called the police.
The Pismo Beach Police Department received two phone calls about the dead shark on July 1, Police Chief Jeff Smith said. People were concerned the fishermen were breaking the law, he said.
An officer then paid Pinedo and his buddies a visit on the pier. The fishermen cooperated with the police, and the officer didn’t find evidence of any crimes, Pinedo and Smith each told The Tribune separately.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife also investigated shark fishing at the pier.
Thresher shark fishing is legal in California all year long, according to state regulations. Each fisherman can take up to two thresher sharks per day with no size limit.
Thresher sharks prefer the open ocean, but smaller threshers sometimes venture closer to shore during the spring and summer. Recreational thresher shark catches are highest from May to August, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
When Pinedo has caught thresher sharks, they’ve been about 6 to 8 feet long, he said.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers inspected recreational shark fishing operations at the pier on July 3, agency spokesperson Krysten Kellum said.
The officers found three thresher sharks caught legally by people fishing in the area. They discovered no violations of fishing regulations, and the officers also did not observe a shark hanging from the pier, she said.
Pinedo said fishing regulations constantly change, so he checks the California Department of Fish and Wildlife website often to ensure he’s following all the rules.
“We don’t want anybody to get in trouble,” he said.
Some callers shared concerns that leaving a dead shark in the water would attract larger, live sharks — but Kellum spoke with marine scientists at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who said this wouldn’t happen.
Sharks have a strong sense of smell and an impressive ability to detect blood in the water, but a 2010 research article in the Journal of Experimental Biology said sharks are no more sensitive to smell than other fish.
Still, sharks are able not only to smell their prey in the water, they can also determine what direction the smell is coming from, an article published in ScienceDirect said. Depending on ocean conditions, sharks can smell blood from about one to three football fields away, marine biologist Dr. David Shiffman wrote in an article published in Scuba Diving Magazine.
When it comes to dangling dead sharks in the water, Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab director Dr. Chris Lowe said “it’s probably not a good idea, especially with the numbers of juvenile white sharks around Pismo these days.”
Pinedo said he’s never seen a great white shark take a bite out of a thresher shark carcass hanging in the water.
In fact, he avoids thinking about great white sharks at all — or any fish that he doesn’t want to catch.
“Don’t manifest what you don’t want,” he said.
Ultimately, he said he loves fishing because he loves cooking. He aims to use every part of each shark he catches — and he’s cooked them every way he can think of, from BBQ to smoked shark to fish and chips, he said.
“Even though we’re fishermen, we love to cook,” he said. “It’s a delicacy.”
