On Fishing With Other Predators

By Jim Gilbert Jun 7, 2023

I have another raging debate to add to the collection characterizing today's tumultuous, terribly divided culture. It's one that's going on among serious beach fishermen and experienced surfers alike in a back-and-forth that happens between strolls and paddle-outs to the next enticing piece of shoreline.

There are the seal haters perched firmly on one side of the divide and seal lovers on the other. This one is not so much a conversation between political or social adversaries, though the longstanding squabble may hint to differences in world view.

For the record, I’m a card-carrying seal lover. I don't announce my beliefs by wearing seal-love hats or T-shirts, but you can identify my ilk by the way we head to the spots where seals are gathering. Members of the other group don't typically announce their feelings either, but they do question why seal lovers surf or fish so close to creatures they consider mortal adversaries or unfair competitors.

On that last point I fully agree. Seals are fast, possessed of extraordinary underwater eyesight, and uncannily smart. They don't face restrictions on where they can fish. They are known for their prowess, nimbly stealing bait off hooks whenever they want. In Alaska, a boat I was on was carefully surveilled by a huge elephant seal basking on a nearby rock. The minute I set the hook, we saw him slide stealthily into the water. When he was halfway to the boat, my heavy braided line began flying off my screaming overpowered reel. A minute later, at the end of the line hung the head of what a few moments earlier had been a 30-pound king salmon. All the meat had been nipped cleanly to the bone.

Here, I have walked miles of beach stalked by seals — I could swear because they see my fishing rod and know the ease and pleasure of stealing defenseless hooked fish from enraged fishermen. I do not doubt that many a striper has been stolen by a seal over the years, though it has never happened to me.

In my own beach experience, only twice have seals come close to thievery. Once a seal chased my striper, thankfully a smaller one, right into the wash at my feet. The second time was during a huge striper blitz halfway between White Crest Beach and Lecount Hollow. I was standing in the Lecount parking lot with my fishing pal Eric watching all manner of predators — whales, bluefish, tuna, stripers, and sharks — feeding on a massive school of menhaden well beyond casting range. When a school of large stripers began driving a splinter pod of baitfish toward the beach, we made a mad sprint in the soft sand. Eric, younger, faster, stronger, and the better fisherman, was halfway into fighting his first large bass before I managed to cast and hook my own.

The seals, which were surely fearful of the sharks feeding just offshore, quickly spotted our helpless fish. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Eric crazily pumping his eight-foot rod to bring his striper up to the surface, becoming the first person I ever saw turn a 20-pound fish into a hydroplane. Being a quick learner, I cranked down my own drag and followed suit. Neither of us lost a fish to seals that day.

It is also true that seals attract sharks. Signs now up at all the National Seashore beaches and warnings in every pamphlet and newspaper article instruct people on how to remain safe in great white shark waters: "Do not swim or surf among seals." My own theory is that I’m relatively safe among seals because they’ll know far more quickly than I will when a shark is cruising about. And why would a shark attack a scrawny, chicken-legged surfer when plump, high-calorie seals are there for the taking?

I fish where the seals are simply because they are infinitely better fish-spotters than I will ever be. I know it's a silly act of anthropomorphism, but part of me would like to be a seal, if just for a day, to see the world and experience the power of the waves as they do.

When I see seals hunting over the flats, diving for their next meal, my adrenaline begins to surge. They want what I want. When a seal pops out of the water with a striper in its jaws — and, I always think, with a smug smile on its face — I don't feel jealous, as I imagine a seal hater might. What I experience is a brief, sweet flicker of understanding. I know that seal's fleeting moment of prideful joy.

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