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I have waited and read about the Mako Mania Tournament, hoping to see some commentary and perhaps a well-earned compliment or two for John and his crew aboard the World Cat for putting shark trolling to the test, but the silence has been deafening. And so I am compelled to congratulate those guys for having the intellect and balls to go into a major tournament using a technique - trolling - that was utterly new to them and seeing for themselves its power. A technique that, I hasten to add, was roundly ridiculed and poo-poo'd by some who apparently couldn't see its merits and not having tried it themselves, felt comfortable condemning it.
And this was a boat that got four game shark bites in something like four and a half hours of fishing the one day that they fished the contest...Need I say that's an average of about a game shark bite an hour? And I respectfully ask, how many others experienced that kind of action sitting on a chum bucket? And before anyone comes in an starts making noises like, "how did they know they were mako and not blue shark or bluefish bites?", let me say that these are longtime shark fishermen who run out of my old home harbor, one steeped in shark fishing tradition and the place from which among the very first shark fishermen ventured. As anyone who has been around sharks very much knows, a mako bite on a fillet or whole bait is distinctive as can be - anyone who can't tell it from those other bites is the rankest form of beginner. And there is no doubt whatsoever about a thresher tail-whacking a surface bait. There is simply nothing else in the world that looks like that wicked weapon of theirs whacking the crap out of a lure!
John only needed one minor tweak to his hook rig that he got right away from us and now I assure you, he will miss very few first bites.
I don't know if I have written this before, but missing a troll shark is a very rare incident if you are set up right. They come in hot and heavy and if they happen to miss the hook on the first bite or get stuck for a moment and then come off, they almost always gobble it down if it is simply dropped back and even if you fail to do that, most come back on a super-aggressive re-bite on that tail-less bait that is "doing the impossible" and still swimming. That doesn't scare or confuse a shark - it pisses them off! We finish that off by tossing a nice, fresh fillet bait back with a two ounce sinker on its nose. If the fish doesn't re-bite the lure, the pitch bait gets nailed.
(If anyone is interested, we now use the new Accurate Twin Drag big game spinning reel spooled with 80# Spectra with a short, 80# mono topshot for these pitches with the drag set at 25-27#. The spinner lets us make a long or short (depending on where the bit lure is), backlash-free cast back toward and close to the bit lure and we get that fillet around him in mere seconds. Beats the heck out of the way we used to do it dropping back on a big lever drag reel. Does this new reel handle big fish? We put one in the fire on a half dozen threshers up to about four hundred pounds so far and it hasn't even broken a sweat yet. That's more than enough for me. Combine it with the right (MEAN!) rod and you've got a real fish crushing one two punch!)
I am not going to go into a rant about shark trolling. Ranting simply isn't my style. Besides, I think that John said it all when he emailed us about his first experience shark trolling and makes some terrific points at the end of this mail. Here it is (the italics are mine)...
Capt Fred and Capt Bob,
I wanted to send you guys both a note to thank you for your knowledge and your help in learning unquestionably the most fun way to target and catch makos! Yesterday was my first opportunity to troll for sharks here in New Jersey, armed with the information from your book Fred and the lure components that Bob had sent me about a month ago.
With our boat still completing an overhaul of sorts, we were entered for the second straight year into the Mako Mania tournament by a local WorldCat dealer to fish his new model 33' center console. We decided that although it was a brand new concept for us, we would give trolling a shot and see if we could make it work. The concept just made too much sense -- the Shark Trroller's Bible was the kind of "kick in the balls" that Modern Tuna trolling was for me 10 years ago. As in, why was I not thinking about sharks this way before! It got me more excited about a new fishing technique then I had been in a very long time.
We weren't set up and trolling for five minutes before we had our first big hit!! Turned out it was likely a mako hitting a mackeral fillet just short of the hook on a converted bigeye lure with a fillet pin rig. My uncle and I both realized right away that we should have freespooled the bait when the fish dropped and he might have come back and nailed it -- all things that we will get better at with some practice. Another short strike hit like the first and a thresher tail attack on a surface purple/chartruse apache later, and we hooked up on mako behind a booby trapped toad!! The mako came up and creamed a Blue unweighted Outlaw with a white and chartruse skirt, with a mackeral fillet. 15 minutes and some cool jumps later we had him along side - a 74" male that weighed 138 lbs. back at the dock. Not a big fish by any means, but one of only 16 qualifying makos out of more then 220 boats over two days.
The amount of action that we had -- one mako, two other likely but unconfirmed mako strikes and a thresher tail whipping in literally under five hours of trolling - was far superior to what the vast majority of the other boats experienced (and I would be surprised if more then one or two other boats were trolling, with it being a real possibility we were the ONLY boat trolling). And the main thing was it was fun as hell! Some of my favorite things about it are:
1. I did not once worry about other boats setting up or driving through my chum slick.
2. I did not have to worry about too many boats all setting up around me in the same small area.
3. I did not come home smelling like crap and all covered in a mixture of gak, bluefish and mackeral.
4. I did not have to change a single bait due to bluefish attacks.
5. I did not reel in and release a single dogfish or blue shark.
6. I did not have to make a single haywire twist in 240# wire the entire day!
7. We spent the day hunting the fish, thinking about where they are, where the bait and water is, where we should be, etc which was far more exciting then picking a spot and "praying" that the mako comes into YOUR slick and not the boat next to you!
8. I did not have to live with the disappointment of watching a mako come into our baits and not want to take anything.
9. I did not have to worry about whether we were in the "right" spot or if we should have been somewhere else -- we covered almost 20 miles of our most productive area.
I could go on and on -- but I will wrap it up now before this e-mail gets really long. The bottom line is this -- on behalf of myself, my uncle (Capt. Pete Casagrande) and my entire crew here in NJ I want to thank you both very much for your knowledge, your help and for giving me a whole new fishing "ballgame" that I thoroughly enjoy. With our bluefin fishery what it is now, this is a great alternative for all charter boats here, although I don't expect many people to be quick to put in the time to study it, learn it and start doing it. Their loss will be our gain!
Take care guys,
John
P.S. Bob, please let me know if you get in any Outlaw heads and skirts in Green or Green/Black. Especially the wieghted ones. Thanks!
Thank YOU, John, Pete and crew.
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