The sharks are rare, but not unheard of, in Essex waters
(Image: Mirrorpix)
When you think of Essex, you might know we have some spots where you’ll find a fair few adders and some pretty big house spiders. What is lesser known is that some of our towns, especially those with large rivers, can be home to sharks!
Smooth hound sharks are rare, but not unheard of, in Essex waters, especially in warmer months. They offer excellent shore and boat fishing with crabs being the prime bait.
They are known for their strong fights, with anglers targeting them from spots like Bradwell-on-Sea and around the Thames Estuary. They have even been found in Burnham-on-Crouch, close to the seawall.
The three ‘Smooth Hounds’ were found in Burnham-on-Crouch in October 2020, where they had somehow got themselves trapped in a dyke behind the sea wall. Thankfully, the Environment Agency were called, and were able to help them out.
The sharks were stuck in around 30cm of water when they were saved. Officers from the Environment Agency were able to catch them in nets, carry them to the open river and release them back in to the wild.
Smooth hounds are a slender bodied shark which grows to a maximum length of 1.6m, usually around 1.2m. The British rod-caught record is 12.7 kg.
Smooth Hounds are native to UK waters, and are commonly know as ‘Gummy Sharks’. This nickname comes from the fact that they don’t have typical pointy ‘shark teeth’. Instead, they have blunt crushing plates used to eat crustaceans like crabs and lobsters.