A Florida family vacationing in South Carolina reeled in two sharks on the Edisto River near Kiawah Island.
PAST COVERAGE: Shark off the coast of Hilton Head?
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Credit: Jennifer Brett
The sharks were bonnetheads, the much smaller cousin of hammerheads. According to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, they are the second-smallest in the hammerhead family, averaging 30 to 48 inches, with a maximum reported total length of 59 inches. They can weigh up to 24 pounds.
Here's the video:
The waters of South Carolina are home turf for these guys. They are "found in tropical and subtropical waters on both coasts of North America, from North Carolina to southern Brazil, including the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and from Southern California to Ecuador" and live "in estuaries and shallow bays with mud or sand bottoms and in coral reefs."
Their diet consists primarily of crustaceans; the ones in the video were lured with a shrimp snack. Thomas Lake landed the first one (his dad Jim Lake posted the video, which we're using with permission); Juliet Fuentes caught the second one.
Charter Captain Harry Demosthenes, a Charleston native who's been fishing for 25 years, was in charge of the outing. Here's his web site if you'd like to meet some bonnetheads.
After filming "Sharknado IV" here, the sharks and the fishing party parted ways.
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