0616 Sharking Off Cape May - Sterling II

[Sterling]

We left Cape May harbor in a light rain around 5am and after about 40 miles with a light chop the seas laid out flat. The water was a bit colder than expected but exactly what the XM surface temp said it would be. I guess I'll start trusting that more. We setup a couple miles past the Miss Arlene where we were greated by a big free jumping mako and a small non mako trolling the surface. After a couple hours of nothing else and water getting colder we moved 10 mi back in.

About 30 minutes after we set back up, click, click, click and the game was on. It didn't feel like a big shark and the jerking motion was a bit odd. We speculated a tail wrapped shark but after about 10 minutes, up came a large sea turtle foul hooked. We brought her to the boat and she swam away healthy. 1 Turtle release...our first.

Capt Pete yelled out holy cow!!! a few hours later when he saw a monster shark free jump about 200 yards off the starboard side. I turned to see a real big splash but missed the shark. Pete thought it may have been a Great White, if not a very big mako. The afternoon brought 1 blue shark in the the 100lb range that we released. It was a first shark for Jeff so it counted for something.

The other entertainment for the afternoon was listening to some of the other Cape May Marlin and Tuna Club boats that did hook up. Dreamer, She Likes it Rough and All Geared Up each landed nice Mako's and Ditch Digger was on something real big for a few hours until it broke off.

Out of chum, we trolled some mackeral for a short bit, then headed for home.

[LadyAngler]

Mike,

Are we going to add turtles to the Club for points?