The lure of sharks - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 123

All hands battle the high tide that threatens to wash away the shark
pool at San Felipe. (Photo by author)
tually passed the peak of the high tides. Now we had two clear weeks
before the new moon and its series of high tides came.
Collecting began. We put out longlines in the bay of San Felipe; we
caught mostly rays of several species and a few small sharpnose sharks
( Rhizoprionodon longurio ). Outside the bay in deeper water we caught
a huge four-hundred-pound mako and some four-foot-long bignose
sharks ( Carcharhinus altimus ), which were listed as rare in Sus Kato's
shark topic. They were small, but they did well in our holding tank.
One of the locals told us about a tiburoneros', or shark fishermen's,
camp around Punta Smith a few miles south; we decided it would be
smart to visit the people who make their living catching sharks. The
camp was inaccessible by road, so we took o¤ in the T-bird and headed
south. Arriving in the afternoon, we were greeted warmly by the fisher-
men, who told us they had set their nets but wouldn't be pulling them
until after dark. That was okay by us; we would wait. By now we'd
been around San Felipe long enough to know our way back after dark.
In the late afternoon they graciously invited us to join them and their
families for a supper of fish tacos—made, of course, from dried shark