Bronze Whaler Sharks (Bronzies) - Part 1

Me with my first bronzie, 69kg

The Bronze Whaler/Copper shark is a species of shark that is targeted along the Falsebay coast by many anglers, but mainly buy competitive league anglers. These sharks put up a massive fight, lasting anywhere from 15min to 2 hours +, and are very difficult to land.

These sharks are caught from the shore purely for sport, and aren't kept, but returned to the ocean to live to fight another day.

In competition points are awarded per kilo, thus bronzies (bronze whalers), are the main focus of most competition anglers on the day, as catches of 100kgs + are a regular occurrence.

These sharks can grow to over 300kgs, the current record for a bronze whaler caught from the shore is held by Greg Kellermann of Two Oceans AC, with a bronzie of 2.50m which is 227kgs.

Greg Kellermann with his record breaker 227kg Bronzie

This record was close to being beaten recently by angler of Tygerberg Rock and Surf AC, Dion Van Zyl with his 2.49m bronzie of 224kgs caught on the 3 October 2009.

These make no mistake, these fish put man and his tackle under tremendous pressure, and is very testing, with the shark winning the battle more times than none.

Dion Van Zyl with his 224kg bronzie (www.probait.co.za)

At a later stage i'll go into more detail on how to target these beautiful machines of nature.

Shark Fishing in Cape Town Part 1

Shark angling from the shore has grown in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years with the invention of the non-return clip. This is the method whereby an angler will cast solely a heavy grapnel sinker into the ocean, and then use a slide trace made from heavy steel trace wire and a non return clip to slide their baits, possibly a yellowtail head, into the ocean. This method enables an angler to put baits much further out than previous methods, as now one does not have to worry about casting a heavy sinker and a heavy bait, but just the sinker.

This method can enable the shore angler to put their baits out as far as 300-400 meters, which was previously unheard of, as one would have to cast a sinker and bait. This method as enabled anglers to target bigger shark and ray varieties, which could not be so easily targeted in previous years.

The non-return clip is a South African invention, and we South African fisherman are the only fisherman in the world that fish for sharks in this manner. Other countries such as Australia and the USA use kayaks to take their heavy baits, something which we'll go into a bit more at a later stage.