It's time to visit the docks, as the HansonRealEstate.com Scratch League is doing some deep-sea fishing. You can forget about the worms, night crawlers and minnows; they won't be of help for these four weeks in the league. So leave the kids with a sitter and put on your lifejacket, because perch is not on the menu tonight. Yes, it's the king of the ocean that the keglers must land if they want to perch themselves atop the standings.

Dooooooooo-dum... Dooooooooo-dum… Dooooo-dum, Dooooo-dum, do-dum, do-dum, do-dum, do-dum … Shark!

The HansonRealEstate.com Scratch League has trolled the depths of the ocean in its quest to catch the Shark. As a PBA experience league, the summer keglers have been bowling on the same oil patterns that the professionals use week in and week out.

The patterns - Viper, Scorpion, Chameleon, Cheetah and Shark - are named for their characteristics on the hardwood. For example, the Cheetah pattern applies the smallest amount of oil, thus providing the most friction on the lanes. This requires the bowlers to use maximum ball speed from the outside of the lane. The Shark, on the other hand, applies the longest oil of any of the patterns. This forces the keglers into the deepest part of the lane because shots thrown too far to the right of the pocket never have a chance to make it back in time.

But before the bowlers could throw their chum on the lanes and hoist their harpoons, there was a small matter of the draft to deal with. After the end of the first half of the league, which saw LPJ Shooters take home some hardware, the league's eight captains drafted new teams. And as you probably noticed from the telecast on ESPN 8, better known as The Ocho, this draft took on a character of its own.

Remarkably, though, in the end the results were consistent with the tactful drafts of the past in that all but one team fell within a 13-pin spread in average. Suggesting that regardless of the strategies employed, the draft format tends to result in fairly even teams across the board.

Now two weeks into the deep oceans of the Shark pattern, it is safe to say that no one has landed the big one. Two sets of teammates have hooked into big fish, but failed to seal the deal. Tammy Watt and Patti Lancaster, Team 3, have top scores for the women with a 765 and 779, respectively. On the men's side, Bob Rhiner and Tim Nelson, Team 5, posted 762 and 772 four-game sets this past Monday night.