Recently the Discovery Channel had its annual shark week of programming. I love that stuff, but usually abstain from watching because I've seen all those shows already. Well, I don't know if they produced some new programming for this year or I've just been out of the loop for a while, but I saw some shows I hadn't seen before.

And naturally, as I'm watching I'm thinking about bass fishing. So here are a few observations.

1. Sharks inhale food.

If you know anything at all about sharks, you figure they're biting machines. They rush up, bite and swallow. But on one program they had footage of a shark literally sucking chunks of dead fish right off the bottom, just like bass suck in a plastic worm or crawdad.

Weird? I thought so because sharks don't have bass mouths or gill plates. I mean, of course they have gills, but not "flare-able" gill plates like bass do. But sure enough, in one of the shots of the shark going away from the camera, you could see the shark's gill slits flare a little as it sucked in a chunk o' fish.

I think this was a tiger shark.

Texas-rigging for sharks anyone?

2. Sharks will hit topwaters.

Is it possible to get enough of that aerial shark footage? Not for a guy who goes by the name Zona, and not for me.

I'm talking about those great whites off the coast of South Africa, launching their 1,000- to 2,000-pound bodies clear out of the water to nail a seal – or a fake seal being dragged by a boat.

Wait a minute: a fake seal?

Figure out a way to jerk a 3-foot by 1-foot brown topwater plug (and change your shorts while fishing), and you could catch a giant shark on a topwater.

Why hasn't anyone produced that show yet?

Just make sure you have a big-enough boat. On most of these shows filmed in South Africa, people are in what look like 20-footers (with dual outboards, at least), and the gunwales look about a foot from the water line.

Hello people! Twenty-foot sharks? That leap entirely out of the water?

Reminds me of my favorite line from Jaws. You know which one I'm talking about.

3. Easy, Mr. Scientist.

When talking to animal rights types, as I have occasion to do here in New Jersey, I usually launch into one of my strongly-held contentions, which is that these people have no idea what they're talking about – meaning they couldn't tell an oak tree from a maple tree, a fox squirrel from a gray squirrel, or a bass from a trout.

In other words, if you don't know animals or "nature" – if you don't get out there and experience it for yourself – keep yer yap shut.

Of course, you can't change irrational people with rational arguments, so I'm not sure what I'm accomplishing. But there you go.

I've made that same criticism about scientists – like the ones who recommend policies for this or that environmental issue in Washington, D.C., but who might not have spent more than a week outdoors in the last 10 years. (They camp and go on hikes. Yippee!)

Thankfully, state fish and game biologists actually do spend time outside – though I wish some of them would actually fish tournaments before deciding how to regulate them.

But back to the shark/bass thing. I'm watching this Shark Week show, and these two guys are talking in a boat about how some young hammerhead sharks "get suntans."

The scientist in the boat is practically jumping up and down about how cool it is that hammerheads "get suntans" when they're put in shallow (and thus sun-reaching) water.

Maybe something goes on in shark skin that he didn't talk about and I don't know about, but for crying out loud: I'm pretty sure that if you put any fish that was in a deeper, darker place in a shallow, lighter place, it will change color – namely get darker. And the same thing will happen if you do the reverse, like in a livewell (there's the bass fishing connection).

I'm starting to think the whole world would be smarter if they just spent time fishing.

Madfin Sharks

I think ESPN might have a runaway hit here. I don't know much about its Madfin Shark Series, but here's what I do know:

> Catch-and-release shark-fishing tournaments.
> Huge sharks caught in shallow, clear water.
> Crazy footage.
> Lots of people talking about it.

I just heard about this recently, and then remembered seeing some footage of it and hearing about it at the recent ICAST fishing tackle trade show in Las Vegas. The footage was nuts – some sharks looked as big as the boats (maybe a South African influence) – and everyone who talks about it gets huge eyes and is real excited.

The bottom line is that the show has good, hair-raising visuals coupled with – here's the kicker – the "I wanna do that!" factor. That means all fishermen who see it, and probably some non-anglers who see it, want to do it. That, in my mind, is a hit.

I guess the initial run of the series is over now. Bring on some more episodes.

Notable

> The craziest footage I saw – you might have seen it already – is where a kid on a surfboard in (you guessed it) South Africa gets attacked by two great whites at once. By some miracle, he survived completely intact. I don't know if surfers in that country are stupid, insane or really brave, but you couldn't get me to do it. (Click here to see video of this attack on YouTube.)