CTFishTalk.com: SNAFU 9/22 bluefin, bonito and beyond - Connecticut Offshore Reports ( CT Offshore Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

snafu · Joined: 17 May 2007 Posts: 50 Location: Griswold & Niantic

Pushed off from Niantic Saturday morning at 5AM with Jason, Joe and Pops. Made great time on the way out due to the smooth ride. Dropped a spread of cedar plugs in ½ mile West of the Mudhole and trolled due East. Had a hook up and released a 26” BFT after 10 minutes of trolling, marked a ton of bait and tuna all thru the area. Landed a bonito about 1 hour later as the Mudhole started to get very crowded with all types of pleasure craft and a group of draggers plowing threw them all.

We decided to try drift chunking for an hour over a hot spot (East side) indicated by the fish finder. Picked up 2 more bonitos, one on a diamond jig and one on a rigged squid set at 40’. The area started filling up again so we started heading South into the thick fog picking up another short BFT in the southern end of the Mudhole.

Deciding that was enough trolling for one day we picked up and headed to the Suffolk Wreck. Arriving there we saw 2 sport fishers already set up and on the drift. Noticed some surface activity in the distance and headed that way to put some distance between the other boats and us. Some small tuna were hitting bait on top, seem like a good spot to dunk the chum.

Set baits at 80, 40, free floater surface bait plus one tuna rigged squid at 40’ all shark rigs were baited with the fresh bonito. Had our first shark on 45 minutes later, a very feisty 6’ blue shark that was running all over the place and gave us a great fight. Had a very large turtle pass the boat, thought it was a floating tractor trailer tire at first, as this was by far the largest turtle I have ever seen.
Had several mystery runoffs that did not hook up, several pulled hooks, one main line chafe due to contact with the sharks skin, one large mahi chase a shark rig to the boat while checking baits and a shark take the squid bait. About this time Water Clam decides to donate the line counter to the fish gods, so its back to the hand method for setting depths for the rest of the day.
Another shark is hooked up and brought to the boat after 10 minutes, once leadered we discover it’s a small but legal mako. The usual chaos erupts on deck as the fly gaff is set and sunk in the gills area. Unfortunately it was a rather poor (shallow) shot and the fish rips the gaff head out after lunging from the leader mans hands, mako 1 SNAFU zero so far, very depressed at being so close to taking home some steaks .

During the day on two different occasions had a shark tail slap a balloon, now this balloon had bait set at 80’. Will a shark slap a balloon with no bait around it? Or was the shark slapping at something else and it happened to be just in the area of the marker balloon?

Throughout the day the fish finder was marking large objects prior to the sharks hitting the bait so it was a great indicator to get ready for some action.

Noticed a shark on the surface just off the bow, a minute later the fish finder beeps showing him under the boat at 70’. Another minutes goes by and the 40’ bait takes off running, Joe clips the rod into the harness and sets the hook. After hook set we watched as the line started rising towards the surface very quickly, someone yelled out “he going to surface”. That was only ½ right as a good size mako does a summersault flip in mid air, followed by 3 more jumps easily clearing 8’ out of the water.
Missed the fish, got the splash Rolling Eyes

Joe sets in playing tug of war knowing that this is not going to be a quick fight as the prior sharks have been. In the meantime this gives the rest of us time to clear all the rods, put the gear away, to give him a free uncluttered deck to work with.
After 1hr 45min we get color as the leader is in sight, first leadering is a bust as he pulls away easily. Second leadering he got a dart (no rope) in the gills to slow him down some, as he‘s still green and very aggressive. As he pulls away from the boat once more a large blood trail is evident.
15 minutes later he is leadered and fly gaffed. Tried for the poon shot again (rope this time) but during the thrashing the poon was badly bent between the boat and fish.
Opted for the tail rope, roped and dragged for a short time then hoisted up and in the transom door for the ride home. The shark was tagged, appeared quite old by the crap growing on the tag and mono, I will post up the tag report when I get the info back.
The shark measured 7’3” fork length, could not get an actual weight as the dock was closed when we returned to port. My mako shark fork length chart puts it at approx 250lbs.
I tried to radio the two other sport fishers in the area to let them know of the multiple hookups at our location (about a mile from them) but did not get a reply. I hope they were too busy with their own sharks to answer my hail.
Congrats the Joe for the solid 2 hour fight without any assistance.

Bryan A. · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Westbrook

Nice report!!!

Looks like you had the good Mojo with ya! After I spoke to you guys we did two times around the mudhole with a few large false ablies to show for it and no BFT. We got behind a few draggers for a little while when heading west towards home but no dice. We trolled all day next time maybe a different strategy. Good talkin to you.
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Quint's Revenge · Joined: 29 May 2007 Posts: 239 Location: West Haven

Sounds like a pretty exciting day congrats to you and your crew on the catch. Just one question; Why is it that you would dart the shark in the gills still "green and agressive" your words with no rope?If he was close enough to stab at him why not put a dart in him? If the fish was still that green he had enough left in him to possibly break you off and in doing so would have eventually died for nothing because you injured his gills.
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snafu · Joined: 17 May 2007 Posts: 50 Location: Griswold & Niantic

After a fight time of 1:45 we needed to speed the process up some due to prior commitments.
He was jumpy at the boat and thrashing around snapping at my hand, even pulled a tooth out of the gelcoat at home. I did not want him gaffed/darted in his present state attached close to the boat, captains call on this.
Bleeding him out (take most of the fight out of him) with a unroped dart prior to getting him leadered again for a final gaffing seemed like a fine idea at the time, and proved to work out as planned, and that's all one can hope for while fishing.
If we had him earlier in the day I would have been happy to let Joe fight him for another hour to take his energy away.

admin · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:54 am Post subject:

very nice!!!! Congrats!
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Just one more cast...

Tashmoo 2 · Joined: 13 May 2007 Posts: 20 Location: Ridgefield, CT

Great story and congratulations on the nice mako.

My few reports have ended as I pulled the boat last Sunday for business obligations. Good luck for the rest of the season
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Ed

snakebite · Joined: 18 Jul 2007 Posts: 63 Location: Norwich, CT

Congrats on the mako Very Happy

I was at the dip on thursday nite, chunking and we did pretty well. We boated 6 YFT ,8 Albies ,1 med Mahi and 1 small sword. But no makos though, oh well maybe next time Smile

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bassarama · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 89 Location: New Milford

Whoa, nice going!

Fight a fish like that for two hours must have been fun! Thanks for the great report and pics.
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sberickson · Joined: 13 May 2010 Posts: 4

Great Pics. Thanks for sharing.

SkeeterJim · Joined: 08 May 2007 Posts: 2219 Location: Newington, CT

Wow! Great report.
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pdcrack · Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Posts: 727 Location: Wethersfield CT

you guys realize this thread is 3 years old right?
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SkeeterJim · Joined: 08 May 2007 Posts: 2219 Location: Newington, CT

jomonkey527 · Joined: 22 Oct 2010 Posts: 225

Maybe it's a dumb question (I have never salt water fished) but what do you do with the shark after? I could not imagine what it's like to catch a shark!

SeaDog1 · Joined: 21 Dec 2009 Posts: 2629

Hi!

Mako is a highly prized food shark!

Tastes just like Swordfish!

SeaDog1