74Formula233

Stay tuned for the results when they are posted....should be interesting!

http://www.newenglandsharks.com/shark.htm

Quote from Capt. Bill Brown, 2003 OBMST winner with a 506# Thresher (new Mass. Sate record that year):

"Saturday will turnout to be a one-day shootout for $250,000....we'll be in the hunt for sure".

Good luck to Capt. Bill and Tony on the Got Rum, and everyone else heading out!

Possum

C'mon now....someone's got to have the results by now. Saw the prelims on the link above, but no details on shark species or weights...

Tony (Got Rum?) ... Any details you can share?

__________________

74Formula233

Cape Cod Times
July 23, 2006

Shark contest draws a crowd
By HILARY RUSS
STAFF WRITER
OAK BLUFFS - As scientist Lisa Natanson sank her blade into the belly of Robert ''Bubba'' Ellis' thresher shark, children in the assembled crowd let out a great, collective ''eeewwwww!''


Robert "Bubba" Ellis and a crew member from the Fender Bender pose for photographs with the 270-pound thresher shark they landed during yesterday's Monster Shark Tournament.
(Staff photo by Hillary Russ)

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Gushing guts were part of the spectacle of the 20th Annual Monster Shark Tournament, which drew fishermen, onlookers, ESPN and criticism from animal rights groups yesterday on Martha's Vineyard.

But for Natanson and the 20 or so other researchers and assistants here, the gore is about science.

Natanson, 46, a research fisheries biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, studies the basic life histories of sharks landed in the contest. Like a botanist reading tree rings, she takes backbone samples to measure age and growth. She weighs and examines stomach contents to study the shark's diet, and she visually inspects size and measures the eggs, uterus, testes and other aspects of an animals' reproductive biology.

She also takes samples for far-away researchers who can't make the trek, like fin clips or embedded hooks for pathologists. Some scientists take samples to study toxicology and shark parasites, and the number of sharks caught, tagged and released also is tracked. Natanson, who wore pink flowered rubber boots, cargo shorts, a blood-spattered shirt and a long knife on her belt, said the federal program has tagged more than 200,000 sharks since it began.

''She's probably single-handedly tagged more sharks than any person in the world,'' said Greg Skomal, a shark expert for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Skomal said that since the big fish will be killed anyway, scientists might as well take specimens.

Natanson agreed. ''For us not to come and let them go to waste is irresponsible,'' she said. ''It's not pseudo-science.''

She was referring to criticism from the Humane Society of the United States, which, along with the state Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, last year began protests and an effort to pressure selectmen to end the tournament. ''This tournament is not about science. It's about sport and its about money,'' said Sharon Young, marine issues field director for HSUS. The group has run ads blasting the contest in local papers and set up an information both in Post Office Square, an area to which its activities were confined by selectmen, Young said. A planned fly-over by a plane with a banner was cancelled yesterday because of high winds.

''Most large shark pops are in a status of dramatic decline,'' Young said of shark populations worldwide. ''We desperately need people to care about them, much the same way we got people to care about whales in the 60s or 70s. By dragging sharks out of the water and hanging them up, you're saying it doesn't matter what you do to these animals, their lives are not that important. In fact, their lives are critical.''

While the spectacle of the weigh-in and dissection has outraged Young and others, the crowd soaked it up when screeching pulleys hoisted heavy shark carcasses up for weigh-in. Crewman Robert ''Bubba'' Ellis, of the Fender Bender out of Kingston, fought a morning downpour and rough seas to reel in a 270 pound thresher shark. The large, moustachioed man sat on the side of his boat, hosing down his shark, smoking a stogie and taking it all in as a crowd gathered to gawk at his catch before it was weighed. It was his sixth time in the tournament but ''it's the only fish we've ever weighed in,'' he said.

The contest is put on by the Boston Big Game Fishing club and hands out prizes to five top finishers. This year's top winner was the Connecticut boat Clan MacGregor, which landed a 482 pound thresher shark and the tournament's grand prize, a 23-foot boat. The Falmouth-based Good Grief skippered by Steve Good took second with a 420 pound thresher. The rest of the field was rounded out by the Tashima in third place, the Whatever It Takes in fourth and the Volatility in fifth.

Kids on shore seemed undeterred by slime and severed shark parts. ''Oh my God!'' yelped Morgan Salinsky, 11, as she noticed the small shark head someone left atop a Styrofoam cooler with a mackerel shoved between its many teeth. It was just the kind of sight that activists say fosters insensitivity to shark populations' welfare.

Salinsky and a group of sisters and friends, visiting from Connecticut, had come back yesterday after stumbling on the weigh-in Friday. What surprised them most? ''How big they were,'' said one friend.

''The blood and guts,'' Salinsky said.

(Published: July 23, 2006)

pete

Returned from OB around 7:00pm saturday night, we decided not to stay for the awards banquet. We were on a mooring in Vineyard Haven and getting to and from OB was a pain in the arse. My bro-in-law and I got an invite to fish on a friend?s boat out of Onset Bay, MA. It was two days of battling very difficult conditions with only 6 or 7 blue sharks to show for a lot of hard work. They extended fishing 2hrs on day one to help let the storm pass. We poked out around 8:30am with the intentions of working to the west as the winds were now out of the NW. Conditions were not as bad as expected and we headed to the fingers. Conditions continued to get worse during the day and we packed it in around 2:00pm. Returned to our mooring and made our way to OB. Watched a few fish brought to scales and had a nice dinner. I believe there were 12 fish weighed in on day 1. On day 2 we were hoping to fish to the south along the big temp break. The weather was not looking great so we again headed to the west. Fished the whole day in building seas and packed it in around 2:30 with 7-8?s moving in with rain. Decided to call it a tournament and headed back to Onset Bay. All and all a challenging two days of fishing. We managed to have lots of fun and laughs, but the conditions made for tough fishin.

I believe there were only around 26 brought to the scales with only around 18 or 20 actually making the qualifying weight. I also heard that only two makos were brought to the scale and neither made the qualifying weight of 250lbs. Tough tournament.

pete

pete

Also, we fished the fingers last Sunday, 7/16. Water temps were on the high side at around 74deg, we got 6 or 7 blue sharks that day, one fish was well over 250#. On fri, 7/21, temps dropped to about 69/70 deg at the fingers. On sat, 7/22, temps in the mudhole were around 71 deg. We searched north for the break, but decided to start fishing on the north end on the mudhole prior to finding the break.

pete