Hilton Head Island is home to sharks – lots of them. It’s also home to Chip Michalove, a fishing charter captain, who has made a career out of wrangling massive sharks in our area and gained a national following in the process.
“The interest in sharks is just on a different level than anything else,” he said. “There is no King Mackerel Week on Discovery Channel. When it comes to sharks, there is a lot more interest than there used to be.”
The CH2 crew watches with Chip Michalove as Jevon Daly attempts to reel in a 200-pound lemon shark.
Shark Week officially kicks off July 26 and runs through August 1 this year, but for Michalove, Shark Week is every week. As owner of Outcast Sport Fishing Charters, he’s spent the past 27 years in pursuit of sharks – and the bigger, the better. “Since I was little, I was obsessed with them,” he said. “Even before school, me and my buddy, Brian, used to go to South Beach and try to catch sharks off the beach. We just got better and better, and then we started fishing Port Royal (Sound) and just always were obsessed with sharks.”
For more information on how to spend a day shark fishing with Chip Michalove, visit outcastfishing.com.
Even with high school graduation on the horizon, he knew his career trajectory was going to be on Lowcountry waterways. “There’s no way you’re dragging me out of here,” he said. “I’m going to be a charter fisherman. If these guys are doing it, I can do it. I can make a living doing this. I’m obsessed with it.”
Baitfish
Michalove’s first few years as a new business owner were rough but a bold marketing move helped him build a committed clientele. “I did this monster shark guarantee where I guaranteed an 8-footer (shark) on every trip, or the charter was free,” he said. “I did that for three years and never had to refund anybody’s money, but I had so many close calls that it was miserable. I was so stressed out every day I was doing it. After three years of having a pretty good clientele, I quit doing it.”
Brooke Peck reels hard to see what took the bait on the second bite of the day.
Over time, his charter business grew. “I would say 95% of my business now is repeat (customers),” he said. “Ten years ago, it was probably 50%, and now through the years, it’s just built up. Ever since I started catching these great whites, probably about 11 to 12 years ago, I was able to pull all my advertising.”
Chip Michalove, owner of Outcast Sport Fishing Charters.
The combination of a thriving charter business and a plethora of online social media followers helped Michalove reach an even larger audience. He was featured on the Discovery Channel during Shark Week in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, he was also featured in National Geographic.
Michalove said sharks are migratory and different species can be fished along the Lowcountry waterways year-round. “In the wintertime, we do the great white stuff,” he said. “The great whites show up in December and they’ll stay all the way until about mid-April. Once they leave, then our summer sharks show up, which are black tips, lemons, bulls, tigers, hammerheads, sharp nosed, sand tigers, and sandbars. We’ve got a lot of shark species here in the summertime.”
Michalove gets the second catch of the day off the hook.
Our Shark Fishing Trip
In May, a CH2 crew of Maggie Washo, Jevon Daly, Trevor Harden, and myself set off on a day-long adventure with Michalove. We were all eager (and slightly terrified) to find out what sharks were in store for our fishing excursion.
As we boarded Michalove’s 35-foot Freeman, we were all impressed with its layout, design, and cleanliness. Many boats have a traditional deep V hull, but Michalove’s had a double hull, also known as a catamaran. We quickly learned that its design made for a smooth ride, even at higher speeds. “It cuts right through the waves really well,” he said.
Rows of pretty white teeth on a blacktip shark.
The boat is outfitted with four live wells and enormous fish boxes. It was designed and built by Billy Freeman, a Charleston fisherman. “It’s a dream,” Michalove said. “I want to be buried in this thing. I love it.”
After departing the dock, Michalove shared his experience with tagging great white sharks during the winter months. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy in Cape Cod reached out to him a few years ago after seeing photos of the great white sharks he had caught. They wanted to do more research on great whites in the Southeast. Michalove was recruited to participate in a process known as “tagging,” which attaches a GPS monitor to the dorsal fin of a great white shark to track their migration habits for research purposes.
Washo smiles after her second big catch of the day. Michalove hurries to get the large shark back into the water.
“You want to see what happens after you release the fish,” he said. “With this type of technology on these charts, you can see exactly where they are, how they recovered, and if they stayed in the area. We’ve had a few going into the Gulf and then a lot of them go up to Canada in the summertime. Working with them has really opened a lot of doors and also made me a better fisherman.”
A giant tiger shark is hooked with former clients of Outcast Sportfishing.
Once we arrived in Port Royal Sound and got the anchor secure, Michalove baited the hook with a fish head. Within a few minutes of putting the line in the water, we heard the magical sound of the line spinning off the reel. Daly stepped up to secure our first fish of the day. After an easy fight, Michalove helped guide a 3-foot blacktip into the boat for quick photos. “We are with the baddest shark dude in the country,” Daly said.
The next line was baited and it was my turn at the helm. I was excited and scared about what might bite and how to muscle it to the boat. I have fished a good bit in my life but this was by far the largest species I had ever targeted.
A quick snap with a large blacktip Shark.
A shark hit the line and we let it run for a bit before Michalove prepped me on what to do once the drag was tightened up. The pull of the shark was fierce and it took all I had to fight the fish. Time slowed down as I forcefully pulled up on the rod while desperately reeling as it went down. Slowly, the fish got closer to the boat. As soon as Michalove laid eyes on it, he saw it was another blacktip – thankfully, a much larger one than Daly’s, not that we are competitive or anything.
As the fish arrived at the boat, I worked hard to keep it away from the boat engines while also staying on my feet. Michalove grabbed the line and swiftly lifted the fish into the boat’s bow with all of us safely positioned several feet away. It was just shy of six feet in length and an estimated 80 pounds.
Michalove poses with a giant hammerhead shark from a previous trip.
The shark had an unusual attachment on its back and we realized it was a tagged shark. After our expedition, Michalove contacted NOAA with its tag number and found out that the shark was initially tagged on 4-30-21 in the St. John’s River in Jacksonville, Florida. We all were fascinated to catch a tagged fish for ourselves after Michalove had shared so much about them earlier in the trip.
We also noticed another small fish in the boat with us. Michalove explained that big fish, like sharks, often attract smaller fish, like remoras, to attach to them as a mutualistic relationship. The small remora was latched onto my shark as it came into the boat. He quickly picked it up and attached it to Daly’s arm, because that’s what friends do.
Needless to say, I was thrilled that I caught that big fish even though my forearms continued to shake for another hour after the fish was safely back in the water. It took about that long for my heart rate to calm down too.
Michalove pulls a small shark into the boat.
Next up, it was Washo’s turn on the rod. She had a solid battle against another blacktip similar in size that we released at the boat. We were less than an hour into our trip and had already caught three sharks.
At Daly’s second time on the rod, he successfully hooked another, larger blacktip. “I get it, fishing is fun,” he said. “This is why people do this.” Shark number four had a brief photo shoot at the side of the boat then headed back out to sea.
After a morning of much wrangling, it was time for pub subs and a beer before our fishing finale. Michalove cut the head off an amberjack, a much larger bait fish, and secured it to the line. The goal was to catch the biggest shark of the day and a few minutes later, that goal was achieved as our crew hooked an 8-foot lemon shark.
Daly was back on the rod, with me as his assistant. Together, we struggled to lift the rod up so Daly could reel as it came down. The shark was relentless. We laid eyes on it several times as it rose to the water’s surface then took off again, deep into the waters.
Daly was getting his butt kicked in a very honorable way by this massive shark. He fought the fish for about 15 minutes before something unfortunate happened. The shark came off the hook.
As the line and hook returned to the boat, we realized that the fish had come dislodged due to it getting hooked on a discarded leader line with another massive hook. Long story short, our shark got off when we hooked a larger hook. Statistically, that’s nearly impossible to have happen again.
We were all in for trying to catch our sixth shark and Michalove got the line rigged up. Washo was back in control as the angler and was arguably the best fisherperson of the day. Her ability to pull the rod up with both hands then reel as it came down was rhythmic and impressive. She quickly brought the biggest blacktip of the day to our boat.
“I’ve known Chip for years but have never actually fished with him,” Washo said. “I was amazed at how quickly he got so many sharks on the line for us. Fighting a 100-pound shark is quite the workout – and I can’t wait to do it again!”
Check out CH2’s social media this month for exciting videos and drone footage from Harden capturing our day shark fishing.
Visit outcastfishing.com for more information about Michalove and Outcast Sport Fishing.