Have I Caught My Last Touney Mako?

[Captain Fred Archer]

As some of you know, I not only have a great respect and love for the game sharks, I have pursued and studied them for many decades, starting off New Jersey, then North Carolina (yup, NC!), Florida, California, Mexico and Australia. And yes, their population worldwide has declined, as has that of virtually all sharks (except for them damned dogs). But I don't believe that things are as bad as recent tournaments might seem to indicate. In fact, I feel that the decent numbers of young ones in the tournaments and more than a few showing up in pelagic trolling spreads is a good sign. Basically, in most fisheries, the primary indicator of impending doom is declining numbers of big breeders and little in the way of young ones.

Watching what has been going on back there (admittedly from afar), it seems to me that what has happened is that the makos are actually on the rebound after being hammered mercilessly by their biggest enemies, the longliners. It is my opinion that we sporties don't have that big an impact on the overall population, especially since we only fish for them in for a relatively short window of time and in what is in reality, only a small part of their range.

I agree with the speculation that at the moment, many are probably concentrating on the hordes of small tunas to the south. They are like all apex predators and seek out and concentrate on the most abundant masses of bait and my guess is that speculation about them doing that is probably right on the money.

I do believe that we fishermen can do a better job of shepherding the mako resource by releasing all of the smaller fish, plus any big, breeder females - except in tournaments -and only taking an occasional big male. That is what my friends and many other fishermen on the west coast do in regards to the threshers. One big male per year is the limit for most. Some of us, including me, release any and all makos. That is a "personal fish management position" that we would rather take than having some burocratic (sorry, brain fart & can't spale thet wurd raht nauw) slamming an entire fishery down on us.

Part and parcel to taking care of the mako resource is to start teasing and bait and switching them, like we do, whether chumming (power chumming) or trolling. This, combined with circle hooks, not only results in a high, healthy release rate, it allows anglers to match the gear up to the size of the fish that show up, which increases the fun and sport with the smaller ones and puts the big guns where they belong - in the face of a big she-mako or thresher that shows up.

More and more tournament winners are trolling and power chumming...and not saying a word about it. And I know for a fact that some of them have been doing it for years, because I sold them their lures and books. Those guys will not only tell you that they don't troll, they will tell you "It don't work here".

A recent tournament winning charter captain of note just wrote and told me that he not only won a big pile of bucks with a tournament trolled thresher back there, but that he started trolling sharks last year and had great success. And not only that, but he also started running some shark baits/lures while inshore bluefin fishing and not only caught good numbers of sharks along with tunas on the troll, he even had some times when he caught both species at the same time!

Food for thought. And congrats to that innovative captain.

Our shark books are available on our website

You can either sit there and let Nature determine where you fish and how much water you cover, or you can create your own, perfect "drift". Up to you.

[Deep C]

This ice water, lack of conduits for them to get inside and diminished supply of bluefish from years gone by, coupled with the reports from down below might indicate that indeed they just havn't made the trip north yet.
Fred I agree that the slobs are amongst the tunas, but the population we usually get here in earlier June is here for a vitamin supliment. The oils contained within various bait species like anchovies, sand eels, bunkers, etc are found inside but the easier concentrated source for them is within the bluefish.
Pretend if you will for a moment. You eat fillet mignon every single day. Sounds great but sooner or later your body will rebel if you don't go get a bag of potato chips or something equally silly.
Yeah the breeder stock is out there. We have em off florida. I see em once a week usually in the pocket big enough to scare the bezeeziz out of me. Its the missing 200-400 class that has me bugged... Virtually none to be had...
When you knock a link out of the chain there is bound to be an impact overall on the population. As the current breeding stock croaks that next wave of breeders is just not there to keep the ball rolling. Down the line this pile of pups that has proliferated will make a nice breeding stock but thats years and years away. Makos gotta be big, real big to make baby makos. I think that number is close to ten years old. These pups we have swarming I don't think are fully two years old yet...

As for trolling... I have been practicing between drifts during the last few weeks and have yet to draw a bite. Again though not fishing where the threshers are subject to being thick...

[fishcop]

There is no doubt that the Mako fishing isnt what it was fifteen years ago, but then again, neither is the tuna, and marlin fishing. Not sure where you fish, but off Ocean City Maryland this year we caught several makos on every trip, and killed two fish over 150lbs, lost another around 300, That was in five trips. Also both of our tournaments this year the top fish were all over 200lbs including a new state record close to 900lbs. I have also heard reports of the long liners up here being covered up with them. While I def, agree the numbers of 200plus pound fish we used to catch are down, this year was far from bad.

[Deep C]

Aha! Another vote confirming that they held or are still holding south this year... That makes me feel a bit better about not catching on this end but doesn't do much for filling that class of missing fish.
I don't know what NMFS will do. They have screwed the sportie every time they can to leave open for commercial interests. I can't see a change of heart on that front... Just once I'd love them to do something right but not likely...

[canyongear]

Deep,
you hit it on the head..and no you have not caught your last tournament Mako..no matter what the NMFS does. The circle hook lines will go away..trust me on that one.. and the boundry limits will be expanded to prevent foreign fishing in our resources. Something a little bird stopped by to tell me last week.

[Deep C]

I would start going to church again if they changed the circle rule for at least combo baits. Hell It wouldn't bug me if the put it in for shark and never has bothered me for naturals...

[canyongear]

you missed the circle hook point..not tournament circles..the others according to my government birdie..

[Deep C]

With the corrupt whores in place I'd have a hard time seeing that in the crystal ball. Crikies! They just extended the "experiment" in our Florida waters. In one year they successfully knocked that fishery back to not worth it status. 3 bite a night average to two bites per three nights just that fast. Still the same ol bullshit stays in place.

Like I said they will screw us long before they screw them...

[RichardTerp]

Exactly right that the makos have not made it north yet. Out of OCMD we have had the best sharking in recent memory. Report was that Nontypical released 7 other makos, one estimated 200# (released because 200# was already out of the money), before they caught the sea monster that turned out to be a new state record. We are still catching makos on the inshore lumps. Many are also being caught as bycatch while trolling in in the deep if you can find the yellowfins they are chewing on.

Sorry about you Jersey boys but last year you had great sharking and Maryland's was marginal. This year the tables are turned.