We never imagined that the already epic dolphin trip would get any better (or worse depending on how you look at it). We certainly didn’t imagine a sizable hammerhead shark would be closely following us back for the majority of our paddle. My friend Brian Nelli of Pushin’ Water Kayak Charters put me on a great bite offshore, but I was never thinking we might end up with more than we could chew!

It all started with Brian and I exchanging stories on the trek back inshore. Suddenly, I thought I saw a huge dorsal fin following just feet behind Brian’s kayak, I was dumbfounded. Upon second glance, my suspicions were confirmed. I yelled out to him, “Dude! You have a huge shark behind you!” At first, he didn’t pay any attention and chuckled. I normally crack jokes – but when he turned around, his chuckle subsided and his eyes opened wide!

The hammerhead followed us for roughly two miles. I’m thinking it picked up some scent off of the freshly caught dolphin, then saw our kayaks. He would peel off from following one of us, begin to trail the other, then circle around multiple times and start the process again.

Sure enough, he bumped into my kayak. I was hoping he would get the idea that my kayak wasn’t flesh and bone. He disappeared for five minutes or so but then returned like Jaws, following us from behind. After getting a little frustrated, wondering what this thing was going to do, I hit him with my paddle. He again disappeared for a few minutes, but soon came back on our trail.

Finally, about a mile offshore, focusing our efforts on the oncoming west wind and growing waves, we looked back and he was finally gone. That made our ascend on to the beach, just a little more calming.

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It’s getting hot quick! Where do you go to cool down? The nice cold air conditioned house I’m assuming, right? Same thing for the fish, they like going to their cool and cozy mangroves or other structure that gives them protection when the blaring sun rises. Look for the bait and you’ll find the fish early in the morning. Mullet, glass minnows, small fry, greenies – I have seen them mixed together and it’s like a buffet line for the fish.

I like to start off with a topwater plug and work it at various speeds until you find out what the fish are hitting on, once you do – keep working it the same way. If you’re also not getting any hits, change the color, you just have to find out what they’re hitting on. On a calmer day, go with a less noisy topwater plug so as to not spook the fish but just attract them. If a chop kicks up then have a higher pitch rattle in the lure.

Early on, the inshore slam (trout/redfish/snook) should be in the shallower water amongst the grass and bait, then as the sun rises they’ll move out to deeper water. However, sometimes you’ll find some fish that act differently. As I was fishing the North Palm Beach kayak tournament this past weekend, I would drift upon trout sunbathing themselves on the top of the water column, backs almost fully out of the water, in 2′ depth. I caught a few in this shallow of water in the middle of the day using a weedless Logic Lure rig, chicken color, with a sliding 1/16 of an ounce weight.

Last week I had the opportunity to take out a few of my friends who had never been kayak fishing before after a failed attempt at going diving for lobster, so it was our close second choice! I had them using white curly tail DOA lures on a 1/16 to 1/8 oz jigheads, and they proved to be the bait of choice for the morning as Jeremy was able to get his first trout and Shawn reeled in his first snook! They had a blast getting out on the water and I’m sure were starting to fall asleep as I told them what to look for on the water and where to cast. I think they had a great time!

Snapper have been biting around structure, no matter the time of day. A shrimp tipped jig thrown around docks, pilings, or other similar material should land you a few. I had great luck throwing some DOA shrimp under some dock pilings and just letting it sink slowly, not even twitching it and they would gobble it up on the sink.

Here’s a few pictures of the North Palm Beach tournament from this past weekend, they had both an offshore division and an inshore kayak division. The wahoo bite has been hot as many were weighed in, with a couple 50 pounders tipping the scale.