THRESHER on Inheritance 8-12-2007 PICS!

74Formula233 · 08-14-2007, 12:43 AM

Well, left Allen Harbor 4AM armed with chum & other chum "material" and headed out to get our fresh bait. Fresh Blues caught by 7 am, headed in the area I wanted to go.

Myself, my father, "Tommy O", and Chris "Rover74".

Chris was an offshore (& sharking) VIRGIN this day.

As a side note, I talked to Bill Brown friday for about an hour about a bunch of shit and we discussed possibilities for the weekend. After discussing his very good success with the Makos recently, he suggested a particular temperature break to target, which showed on Thursday's charts.

Now, being Friday, and the NE blow happening, I knew I'd have to watch the charts and make a judgement call once the weather blew thru......so when it did, I took Bill's recommendation, and the "new" charts Saturday afternoon, and figured out where to go.

So....we found the break (~ 4 degrees) with not too much effort, thanks to Oceantemp's accuracy

and, with the MULTITUDE of boats around, had to make a call where to set in. The water was VERY clean. Petrels all over. Where we set in was not my ideal choice exactly but given the other boats, it was our best option.

We had hardly any wind, and we started drifting opposite the way I expected, blowing my theory on setting up where I was LOL (or so I thought!) Took us almost an hour to get all our baits in and somewhat orderly, after having to move and rotate the boat several times......VERY FRUSTRATING.

We finally got situated in a way I was happy with. The baits were 90 degrees to the chum slick, but no matter.......anything in the slick would find them anyway, it's not as big a deal as some think. Besides, you can't control mother nature LOL.

So, lines were in/situated by 9 AM.

30 minutes in, we had our first blue. Chris took this one, his FIRST SHARK EVER

A 7 footer, feisty as all hell, as all the blues today would prove to be! Tagged, and had other blues swimming all over in the slick. They were eating funny, grabbing the bait,sinking the float, letting go......grabbing running......letting go.....strange bite today.

Tom and my father see a tail in the slick they thought was a Thresher. Not seeing it, I just figured it was a big blue and they saw the tip of the tail.

Soon after had another Blue on.......did the usual to it LOL.

Then one of the baits starts acting up (~15-20 mins after seeing the tail in the slick), similar to all the blues before....playing, biting, dropping, tugging, stopping. Figured another blue. Then I get the chance to hook the shark, after a nice run. It actually ran like a Mako, but still thought a blue.

Then I see a Thresher on the surface heading towards another bait....and I start cursing (yes 4-letter words LOL) that here I was with a Blue Shark on, and I wanted to throw a pitch to the Thresher.....well, then the belly comes out of the line, and I was very happy to learn that he and I were connected

(as he turned sideways, saw it was a male),

Fight on, I could see he was hooked well, as he swam by but didn't really know yet LOL. So it was an easy job easing the fish to the boat several times. Still very green and not having had a chance to really run yet, I cautioned the others to not even think of gaffing yet LOL.

He turns away from the boat and runs like a bat out of hell on the surface......like a rocket, then straight down. He took off so fast, he ripped the mono right thru the damn styrofoam shark float in the water, and that went flying LOL. This fish was now trying to separate himself as far as possible from the boast, which he was successfully doing, about a foot or 2 of line at a time.

Not wanting to go much heavier on the drag, we powered up and I gave my father direction on what to do as I fought it......my aim was to slowly power forward in a wide circle, to turn it's head and fins slightly upward and make him "plane up", which he started slowly doing, and I regained line.

Once we got him boatside again, the flyer was sunk in it's head/gill area, which knocked him out and we tailroped him immediately and tied him off.

It was now 10:30 AM. We discussed and decided to keep sharkin. Had a lot of action so far, and we still had our slick, as we left 1 bucket in the water while we moved around.

*** BTW, talking to Bill Brown after this trip, I learned of another Thresher taken in this area 350-ish#, by a guy he gave some pointers to as well!

Got a several more Blue Sharks, mostly sight fishing at this point, as we couldn't get our baits in the damn water ..... but we were happy sight fishing. One Blue had a large tuna hook in it with a long length of mono......and he was bleeding out it's gills......not sure why, as I did not have him gut hooked, our hook was hanging out his mouth.....maybe the fight aggravated a hook he may have had in his throat that we couldn't see......tagged and released, and he swam away "fine", so far as we could tell......still wonder what made him bleed so much.

What a super day! I had a bad feeling about the sharking when we got there, due to the drift and wind.......but it turned out just fine! And the ride in was as flat as the ride out!

So, we estimated the Thresher around 125# or so, although I had several guys say they thought it was bigger.....I tend to either underestimate or be fairly accurate, so I dunno.........not huge, but a nice steaker! Freezer's full again LOL

So, all in all, we couldn't complain this day! Great weather, great action, and we showed a virgin offshore angler a good time LOL. I reminded him several times that we spoiled him on this shark trip LOL. I took Chris Toggin' for his first time in 2005, and he "got spoiled" then too LOL.

Coming in, we saw someone on hard ground in the channel at Allen Harbor.......poor "B" didn't know the water I guess.....narrow channel, gotta hug the sandbar VERY closely!

Lots of pics, so please be patient......

Hawaiian Punch stopped by the slip in his buddy's boat too.......and my nephews came down and had fun poking around the shark and watching me steak him.