"POLECAT"-OC,MD BLUE SHARKS AND POWER BOATS!!!

[brad regan 01]

that would be fun on the fly jake

[frankypettolina]

do you guys ever video the fly fishing? Iwould like to see the shark fly adventure

did you have any eat you balloons? we lost several balloons and rigs to balloon munching sharks!!

[jemche]

brad and i were shark fishing on little gull(not fly fishing) and had a shark came right up to a baloon and try to bite it. it was the first shark we had ever seen and we were afraid the baloon was going to pop and scare the shark away. baloon did not pop and we caught out first shark... about a 4 ft. dusky or sandbar?? i will film our next trip if we go.

[frankypettolina]

The balloon pop definitely does not scare them away- I have had makos eat balloons then eat another and another before they ate the bait. One time I had a blue shark miss the balloon and bite the line- the balloon was left out htere with the bait hanging under it- it stayed with us while we were drifitng, and about an hour later the balloon took off and a mako came up jumping- hooked itself on a free floating bait not tethered to a rod!!!

Looking forward to the video of some fly fishing.

[brad regan 01]

the blue sharks were all over the floats...we were not using balloons they were also biting the chum bucket.

[frankypettolina]

Blue sharks sometimes get a bad rap- but I think they are a great fish- they come right to the boat and do discovery channel type stuff- you can mess with light tackle and fly because you don't mind losing a few fish- there will be more, and they serve as good practice for big fish, with a little less pressure on the angler, capt, and mate. They still need to be respected- they are afterall, a big fish with lots of teeth- but hey they tend to be pretty fun to deal with.

[Captain Fred Archer]

Different strokes for different folks. Personally, many of my sharkin' buddies and I have no use for catching blue sharks. Other folks enjoy catching them and that's more than fine with us. But we are exclusively interested in makos and threshers and we don't want to miss one because we are messing around with a blue, or worse yet, several of them. We both troll and power chum for our sharks. We troll fast enough to avoid blue bites and when we are power chumming there are no hooks in the water - only teasers, both live and dead.

We size up any fish that we raise power chumming - and believe me, there is no more aggressive fish in the oceans than a shark when you try to take a teaser bait away from him. They come hard and fast. After we ID the fish, we bait him with the right sized gear; big guns for the big girls and little ones for the smaller ones.

We eliminated blue sharks biting off the balloons on our swordfish rigs by running them off of the main line with a short piece of yarn, rigging thread, or whatever. Doesn't stop them from biting the balloons, but at least none of them bite the line and you lose rigs.

IMO blue sharks are good fish for newcomers to start out shark fishing with. They are pretty fish and are pretty cool, too, but I'm just not interested in catching them for the reasons stated. And I acknowledge that they can be an excellent fish for charter captains because everybody in a party usually gets to pull on at least one of them.

A word of warning (one of many in the "Heed or Bleed" sections in my shark books)...All sharks are dangerous, including blues. You don't want to get bitten by one of them, to say nothing of a snaggle-toothed, flesh ripper of a mako. The real danger with blue sharks is their tendancy to roll up in a leader when you are wiring them. If you don't have your attention entirely focused on the fish at this time, he very well might roll up on the leader and chomp the hell out of you and you will have a bloody mess on your hands.

And those flying chainsaw makos? That is a true nightmare fish that you do not want in your lap...and if you aren't doing things right, that's right where one might wind up.

Check the photo...DUCK!

(Our new) Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[frankypettolina]

Fred, could not agree with you more. All fish, especially big ones with a mouth full of teeth deserve respect.

When I am just fishing for me (no novices, no paying customers etc etc) I am in the same boat as you, just give me mako bites- same thing when I am in the bluewater- give me one 25 pound tuna for a couple of seared pieces and some raw- then give me nothing but billfish.

Alas, I seldom get to go fishing just for me though, so give me anything that puts a bend in the rod and a smile on the face!!

[the other Dave Sikorski]

lol I google my name every once in a while and see what comes up, i always see the Dave Sikorski Pro fisherman. Then i ran across this pic on your forum from one of the races we did in Ocean City. Who'da thunk i was that close to the other me


By the way theres another one of us that is/was a Detroit Redwing lol

Good luck out there and hope ya limit out. I grew up fishing the great lakes with my grandfather, great times.

LOOK. DAVE SIKORSKI IS FAMOUS. ON THE SIDE OF THE CLEVELAND CONSTRUCTION RACING BOAT!

[the other Dave Sikorski]

Damn, my cover has been blown. I told the decal shop to make those stickers really small. That boat was my top secret weapon to make it 100 miles to the marlin this year in front of everyone else!

In all seriousness.....Jake, pretty work on the blues. Wanna try them with the 13 wt?

-D

trade ya for a day