Before heading out, an angler should have an understanding of shark regulations and identification. Dropping a bait in the ocean will eventually attract a shark, so it pays to know whether it can be kept. Here's a regulations summary, but anglers should check current NCDMF regulations for more specifics.

The creel limit is one shark per vessel unless fishing from shore, charter boat or head boat, then the limit is one per person excluding captain and crew.

In internal and coastal waters out to three miles, sharks must be between 54 and 84 inches fork length, except tiger, thresher, bigeye thresher, shortfin mako and all hammerhead species, which may exceed 84 inches. Prohibited sharks are basking, white, sand tiger and whale. Minimum size does not apply to Atlantic sharpnose or dogfish and creel limit does not apply to dogfish.

In the Exclusive Economic Zone, three to 200 miles offshore, minimum length is 54 inches with no maximum. Legal sharks include sandbar, silky, tiger, blacktip, spinner, lemon, bull, nurse, smooth and scalloped and great hammerhead, blacknose, finetooth, bonnethead, shortfin mako, blue, thresher, porbeagle, and oceanic whitetip. Prohibited sharks are whale, basking, white, sand tiger, bigeye sand tiger, Atlantic angel shark, bigeye sixgill, bigeye thresher, bignose, Caribbean reef, Caribbean sharpnose, dusky, Galapagos, longfin mako, narrowtooth, night, sevengill, sixgill and smalltail. One Atlantic sharpnose of no minimum size and one bonnethead of no minimum size per person may be landed in addition to other shark limits and there are no limits on dogfish.

For information about a fishing trip, you can contact the following charters:

Fish Witch II Charters, Carolina Beach, Carl or Shane Snow, (910) 458-5855.

Capture Charters, Carolina Beach, Fisher Culbreth, (910) 262-1450.

Down East Charters, Greg Voliva or Ray Massengill, (252) 249-3101.

Excellent reference books include Offshore Angler -- Coastal Carolina's Mackerel Boat Fishing Guide, by Mike Marsh (e-mail mike62774@ aol.com), Sport Fish of the Atlantic, by Vic Dunaway (on line at www. floridasportsman.com/books) and Sharks of the World by Leonard Compagno, Marc Dando and Sarah Fowler (Princeton University Press, visit nathist.princeton.edu.). For regulations, visit the NCDMF Web site at www.ncfisheries.net.