Hermosa Beach Shark Week: over 20 hooked Saturday on pier [UPDATED]
by Kevin Cody Over 20 juvenile sharks, six- to eight-feet in length, were caught by fishermen on the Hermosa Beach Pier on Saturday, April 11. La Playita restaurant owner Harold Cohen said he saw the fishermen catch and release five sharks in the span of an hour during a break he took on the pier about noon on Saturday. The fishermen told him they had hooked over 20 sharks since arriving at the pier at 6 a.m. They said they used whole mackerel as bait on one ought (1.5 inch) hooks, commonly used to catch small sharks. If the sharks did not shake free of the hooks, the fishermen said, they cut the lines after reeling the sharks to the surface. Reeling in the sharks commonly took 10 to 15 minutes of racing the length of the pier railings. The fishermen kept the sharks outside of the surfline to keep them away from bathers. A fisherman reels in a shark Saturday afternoon at the Hermosa pier. After wrestling the shark to the surface, he freed it by cutting his line. Photo Kevin Cody The fishermen said they believed the sharks they hooked were Makos, which are legal to catch. But Keith Poe, a nationally recognized expert on Great White and Mako sharks, said the shark in the photos…
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