Fishing with Dad

This little guys is a shovelnose guitarfish, a very distant relative of the shark. They feed on worms, clams, crabs, small fish and other edibles found near the ocean bottom, hence, the flat raylike body and mouth near the underbelly.

The Shovelnose was caught by a family out fishing on the beach. Dad was nice enough to call me over to photograph the Shovelnose which was dangling from the line. They had caught one fish before that of pretty decent size. However, I'd guess that it wasn't about catching dinner. It's really about spending some time with the kids. One of the kids was taking fishing pretty seriously, manning his pole very diligently. He was the one that unhooked the Shovelnose and tossed it back into the water. The other two were busy roughhousing in the sand. Overall, I'd say that Dad was just happy to spend some time with them at the beach, regardless of what they chose to do.

It reminded me of the days I spent fishing with my Dad. We used to pull up small hammerheads which we normally tossed back. There was a researcher from the University who used to ask for the sharks and would resuscitate them in a big tank in the trunk of his car for later use in research. We called him the "shark-man." Once in a while we even caught something decent. I suppose I didn't understand the point of spending hours to catch one or two fish back then. The bait probably cost more than the fish we caught. Looking back, it all makes a little more sense.