JAWS AND EFFECT
Sharks are on the rise, and one fisherman is biting back
WHILE some are cowering from beaches amid reports of sharks amassing in record numbers off East Coast shores, Tom LaCognata is braving the waters like the real-life Captain Quint of NYC’s shark fishing scene.
“It’s a pretty interesting, fun game,” LaCognata, the captain of Rockaway Fishing Charters, who specializes in sharks, told The Post.
In his 15-plus years of sharking, often in tournament settings, LaCognata has landed a murderer’s row of toothy predators: From small dusky sharks to a 438-pound thresher shark — his biggest ever. He’s also hooked a monster 323-pound shortfin mako shark — a classified “man-eater” and the world’s fastest shark, clocked at up to 46 mph.
A battle of wills
On an outing earlier this week, LaCognata and shipmates Gene Rudd and Tom Laible took turns fighting a thresher shark that weighed more than Shaquille O’Neal. Each time one of the sharkers tired out, they passed the fishing rod to the other angler, so they could sip water and towel off like Jake LaMotta between rounds. After a backbreaking, hourlong tug of war — during which the muscular sea beast was reeled in and then dragged the line hundreds of yards back into the open water — the team finally brought in an approximately 16-foot sea monster.
“You get the bite, then the chaos begins,” LaCognata explained.
It’s prime time to pursue apex predators: The East Coast has experienced a veritable sharknado of late, with more sightings — including one great white blood feast in May — in the last two years than the previous decade. A record 26 were spotted last summer off Nassau County alone — while the US leads the world in “unprovoked” shark attacks after a three-year decline.
Alarm over the 2022 season started growing in December, when a viral tweet revealed that the Ocearch Global Shark Tracker had mapped 100 tagged sharks gathering in the Atlantic Ocean near the East Coast.
LaCognata, 54, told The Post he has indeed noticed a lot “more sharks” and that they’ve been “closer to shore” than ever before.
Understandably, authorities are beefing up security across the region’s beaches. Earlier this month, Long Island implemented the Hempstead Town Shark Patrol, featuring lifeguards on Jet Skis that scour the water for sharks, after a fisherman spotted a 10-foot mako shark off Long Beach.
“People will not want to hear this, but I often see sharks either right in the waves or just beyond the waves,” conservation biologist and “Shark Week” host Craig O’Connell told Newsday after the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation added three predator-tracking drones to its fleet.
Scientists attribute the shark spike to warming waters. “Climate change is definitely playing a role . . . especially in the sightings we’re seeing this year and last year,”
said Chris Paparo,
of the South Fork Natural History Museum’s shark research team. “As sea temperatures are rising due to climate change, a lot of fish populations are shifting north.”
In 2020, Manhasset’s TJ Minutillo caught a nearly 8-foot-long bull shark, a normally warm water species, which, along with the great white and tiger shark, is responsible for the most attacks in the US.
Variety of vicious killers
This news may be unnerving to beach-goers, but not for LaCognata, whose goal is to get a “shark bite.” While he mainly targets makos and threshers, once in a while, the shark czar hooks up with something even badder.
“We’ve hooked up great whites [accidentally], probably 6 to 7 feet [in length],” said LaCognata, who had to release them as they are “vulnerable” species protected under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
“We were able to get [them] close to the boat and just cut the line. You don’t want to get too close to their teeth.
“I’ve seen two great whites swim un
der the boat that were humongous,” LaCognata added of another encounter, which evoked the iconic breaching scene in “Jaws.”
“I was back there chumming and just looked over the stern of the boat and I see this massive great white go by and then another one go by right after that.”
He added, “Luckily they didn’t take our baits or they would’ve just spooled the whole line,” referring to when a fish takes all the line off the reel.
What’s the allure of pursuing these ferocious hunters?
“It’s the thrill of the game,” LaCognata said. “Getting them hooked up is a very difficult thing to do. And getting them in is even more difficult. And if you wanna release them, that’s pretty difficult as well.”
Deadly and delicious
A typical shark fishing excursion entails taking a boat between 3 miles and 45 miles offshore, often in tumultuous waters. When it arrives at its destination — usually “a wreck or rubble,” per LaCognata — the crew begins creating a “chum slick” by throwing a hole-riddled yellow bag stuffed with ground bunker fish over the side of the moving boat to entice the creatures’ unparalleled sense of smell.
Then 130-pound test lines baited with mackerel and bunker are set out at different depths, and the waiting begins.
“People call sharking a beerdrinking sport,” said LaCognata. “Sometimes we wait all day for a bite, sometimes you get it right away. Sometimes you don’t get it at all.”
If they do get lucky, the crew — which generally comprises at least two guys besides the captain due to the grueling nature of the gig — scrambles to their positions like a predator-pursuing pit crew. The angler jams a massive 80-class Penn International rod into their belt holder and starts fighting. LaCognata steers the boat to keep the sharker on top of the fish, and, when close enough, two other mates harpoon, gaffe and finally tail-rope the beast. After the fish is secured, gaffes are used to haul it in through a door in the boat.
Even then, the battle’s not over. “You gotta tie off the head and tail,” cautioned LaCognata. “Sometimes when you think they’re dead they’re not even dead. They just come back to life and start thrashing around.” As such, LaCognata advises against putting one’s head in a shark’s mouth for Instagram.
Wrestling threshers is especially tricky due to their whip-like tail — used for stunning fish — which measures half the length of their body, sometimes up to 9 feet long.
LaCognata’s mate, who goes by Nick the Greek, claims that a 400pound thresher could “break your leg” with one slap of its rudder.
What’s the reward for winning this maritime heavyweight match? In the case of landing a mako or thresher, it’s the succulent, swordfish-like flesh.
“My favorite way to cook it would be barbecue, some teriyaki sauce and some sesame seeds,” said LaCognata. “They’re delicious.”
Of course, “a lot of people don’t like sharks to be killed,” LaCognata admitted. “People want to do catch and release. We’re fine with that.”
He’s only so worried about the uptick in local shark sightings. Most of the species identified off Nassau County last year were common sand sharks or thresher sharks, which are not known to attack humans.
“They don’t really have to be afraid of the threshers, they don’t bite,” said LaCognata. “They’re just hunting the schools of fish.”
Meanwhile, Long Island fisherman Luke Alter, 25, believes there are the same number of sharks there have always been. “We’ve been living with these fish in the ecosystem forever,” the prospective lawyer, who’s been fishing NY waters all his life, told The Post.
“People are just now starting to become aware of it because of social media,” he said. “They forget we live on an island — where do you think the sharks are?”