74Formula233
New member
OK OK OK....so I decided to "punish myself" with one more day of sharking yesterday LOL. 
Anyway, here goes with the LATE report.....I'll post up what I can remember.
Short story is we caught 17 sharks...5 Makos and 12 Blues. 8)
On the way out, we got some fresh blues. Also saw a couple schools of BFT south of Block on our way out. Dropped a spread and we had multiple lunges, but no take-downs. Next school was HUUUUUGE!
Dropped another spread, and while setting the 4th line out, the first 3 all go off within seconds of each other. 3 - 60#ers brought to the boat rather smoothly all at once. Just a little fun on the way out, we couldn't resist.
Anyway, we got to our first spot, set up....pulled one Blue Shark in 4 hours and left to set up elsewhere. Next spot we set up. Before nightfall Friday we pulled in 7 more Blue Sharks to 11', had to be 300#+ easy. We also pulled in 4 Makos before nightfall! 8)
All 4 Makos were legal, we almost kept the first one we got Friday to bring in/weigh, but it measured 5'-2" to the fork, and the weight charts I have put it between 90-100# or so....we had it tailroped but unharmed while we discussed and we decided we didn't want to take one that small for a tournament. Wanted to wait for something bigger, we had confidence that our spot would produce. Tough decision, as not many Makos have been brought in to our local tournaments, so it very well could have been a contender in a smaller tournament, but we would have felt like shit bringing such a small pup to the scale. If it were a REC trip only, I may have brought it in to eat.
Anyway, the other 3 Makos that day were all about the same size....one I tagged and after I cut the wire close to it's mouth, it turned around and jumped out of the water straight up at my face next to the boat and hissed at me, almost spitting water in my face!!! Came within inches! Then it turned and screwed. I almost shat my drawers LOL. I think Roy was close to solids also, he was standing right there next to me LOL.
Caught 4 more Blue Dogs thru the night.
Almost all the Blues were 10'-11' or so average, one was 7'. Big bitches that really wore us down, catching them all night. By 2AM Saturday I had been up 24 hours, and had only had 2 hours sleep THURSDAY night before leaving for Mystic FOR the tournament, so it was even worse. I finally was able to get relief and went and layed down for 2 hours....very compromised nap but it was something.
Saturday about 7AM we had 2 Makos at the boat, the first smaller one playing with a beer bottle in the water (it actually took the bottle under and left LOL).
Then a big one came by and grabbed our 30' deep bait. After a long fight we saw it and estimated about 200-250#! This was the one were waiting for and we were psyched! It finally made a run, jumped 10'-12' high, did a somersault with a twist, and got wrapped in the leader. It went deep after that and Dave brought it up slowly....we saw it coming up tail-first.....a mixed feeling....you have almost no control in this situation, and now have dead weight. We had 2 gaffs ready to try to end the game, and as soon as it got within reach, she turned, saw the boat, and gave 2 big tail-thrusts, dove, and popped the line with the sudden burst of energy. Our hearts sank.
We had nothing else the rest of the morning, we had no wind, no drift......our shot at a decent weigh-in was gone.
We headed in with nothing, but had tagged 9 sharks including 1 Mako....all the nighttime sharks I didn't tag, it was tough enough seeing what was going on, I wasn't going to add to the difficulty). I also didn't tag 3 of Friday's Makos or the last one we lost obviously. The other 3 I was too busy doing other things to worry about tagging. We were busy sighting/estimating/measuring.....
SO.....We had brought 5 Makos to the boat out of 17 sharks. Damn good ratio. All legal too, until the last big bitch we wanted. By the way, the last one had a leader hanging out already, so it had learnt how to escape at least once before! We had a strategy, she had a strategy....she won! That's all part of the game. Exciting, fun, disappointing....all mixed feelings but a good time in the end!
I'll add the pics up next.....notice in one with fog there is a Submarine there if you look closely 8) There is also a pic of the new (spring?) "Black Rock Wreck" at Block :shock:
Anyway, here goes with the LATE report.....I'll post up what I can remember.
Short story is we caught 17 sharks...5 Makos and 12 Blues. 8)
On the way out, we got some fresh blues. Also saw a couple schools of BFT south of Block on our way out. Dropped a spread and we had multiple lunges, but no take-downs. Next school was HUUUUUGE!
Dropped another spread, and while setting the 4th line out, the first 3 all go off within seconds of each other. 3 - 60#ers brought to the boat rather smoothly all at once. Just a little fun on the way out, we couldn't resist.
Anyway, we got to our first spot, set up....pulled one Blue Shark in 4 hours and left to set up elsewhere. Next spot we set up. Before nightfall Friday we pulled in 7 more Blue Sharks to 11', had to be 300#+ easy. We also pulled in 4 Makos before nightfall! 8)
All 4 Makos were legal, we almost kept the first one we got Friday to bring in/weigh, but it measured 5'-2" to the fork, and the weight charts I have put it between 90-100# or so....we had it tailroped but unharmed while we discussed and we decided we didn't want to take one that small for a tournament. Wanted to wait for something bigger, we had confidence that our spot would produce. Tough decision, as not many Makos have been brought in to our local tournaments, so it very well could have been a contender in a smaller tournament, but we would have felt like shit bringing such a small pup to the scale. If it were a REC trip only, I may have brought it in to eat.
Anyway, the other 3 Makos that day were all about the same size....one I tagged and after I cut the wire close to it's mouth, it turned around and jumped out of the water straight up at my face next to the boat and hissed at me, almost spitting water in my face!!! Came within inches! Then it turned and screwed. I almost shat my drawers LOL. I think Roy was close to solids also, he was standing right there next to me LOL.
Caught 4 more Blue Dogs thru the night.
Almost all the Blues were 10'-11' or so average, one was 7'. Big bitches that really wore us down, catching them all night. By 2AM Saturday I had been up 24 hours, and had only had 2 hours sleep THURSDAY night before leaving for Mystic FOR the tournament, so it was even worse. I finally was able to get relief and went and layed down for 2 hours....very compromised nap but it was something.
Saturday about 7AM we had 2 Makos at the boat, the first smaller one playing with a beer bottle in the water (it actually took the bottle under and left LOL).
Then a big one came by and grabbed our 30' deep bait. After a long fight we saw it and estimated about 200-250#! This was the one were waiting for and we were psyched! It finally made a run, jumped 10'-12' high, did a somersault with a twist, and got wrapped in the leader. It went deep after that and Dave brought it up slowly....we saw it coming up tail-first.....a mixed feeling....you have almost no control in this situation, and now have dead weight. We had 2 gaffs ready to try to end the game, and as soon as it got within reach, she turned, saw the boat, and gave 2 big tail-thrusts, dove, and popped the line with the sudden burst of energy. Our hearts sank.
We had nothing else the rest of the morning, we had no wind, no drift......our shot at a decent weigh-in was gone.
We headed in with nothing, but had tagged 9 sharks including 1 Mako....all the nighttime sharks I didn't tag, it was tough enough seeing what was going on, I wasn't going to add to the difficulty). I also didn't tag 3 of Friday's Makos or the last one we lost obviously. The other 3 I was too busy doing other things to worry about tagging. We were busy sighting/estimating/measuring.....
SO.....We had brought 5 Makos to the boat out of 17 sharks. Damn good ratio. All legal too, until the last big bitch we wanted. By the way, the last one had a leader hanging out already, so it had learnt how to escape at least once before! We had a strategy, she had a strategy....she won! That's all part of the game. Exciting, fun, disappointing....all mixed feelings but a good time in the end!
I'll add the pics up next.....notice in one with fog there is a Submarine there if you look closely 8) There is also a pic of the new (spring?) "Black Rock Wreck" at Block :shock: