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First I would like to mention that this year’s shark tournament saw more decent size Mako’s released or brought back to the scales than I have seen in quite a few years. It kind of reminded of the tournament 12-15 years ago and I have been fishing the South Jersey Shark Tournament for over 20 years now. This year’s shark tournament turned out to be one of the most competitive ones in recent years with the decent number Mako’s caught or released and personally for us the sharking was nothing short of awesome both days. I have not seen inshore sharking this good in many years and the only trips I ever saw as many sharks around our boat was when we fished in the deep canyons at night targeting those monster size Mako’s in 900-1200 fathoms. On those trips we would pick the shark we wanted to target and hand feed it since on most nights out in the deep we had sharks all around the boat (Blue Sharks) as soon as we started chumming. At times the last two days the shark fishing on the Hooked Up II was almost this good but we were in 30 fathoms far inshore of the deep canyons where it was a mile or more in depth plus fishing in the day rather than at night. I think we released somewhere around 20 sharks all over 100 lbs while keeping one 160 lb Mako for table fare for our charter.
I was very fortunate to even be able to find a charter for this tournament as the group that had us booked us way back in late 2009 cancelled last Monday 4 days before the start of the tournament for personal reasons. I really thought we would not be fishing the tournament this year and it would have been the first one I missed in over 20 years but we got lucky and Mike Comisac from West Chester, NY called early Tuesday morning when he heard our boat might be available and booked us last minute. Mike brought his sons, dad and a friend and made it a family outing and with the number of sharks we caught or released the last two days everyone in his group will remember for many years to come. Believe it or not there were some sore arms on board yesterday as we also fought really big Bluefish in the 10-12 lb range all day on Friday as well as a bunch of sharks. On a side not Mike has traveled the world fishing in some world class Marlin tournaments and has been seen in on national TV as part of the crew of some pretty high profile bill fishing boats and his home away from home is the waters off Hawaii and Cabo San Lucas. He had never fished in a local shark tournament before and for him personally it might not compare to the North Wall off St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands but it give him the chance to fish with his 3 sons and dad in a local tournament where it did not involve a long airplane ride. Mike’s group got what they were looking for even though we did not win the big prize money but we ended up tied for second or third overall in the tournament for most points awarded for sharks caught or released and that is not bad with around 145 boats the fished the tournament the last two days. If you like lots of action on big Bluefish on light tackle or decent size sharks on medium-light tackle that is what we provided for Mike’s group the last two days. Around 20 sharks released and unlimited big Bluefish in two days of fishing is not too shabby these days fishing inshore of the canyons. I must congratulate and thank my crew that was composed of the master shark men themselves (Josh & Jerry) and master chief himself, Timmy who was intending on this trip to provide our charter with a nice hot breakfast and lunch but had to settle on cooking hot dogs and cheese steaks for the charter as the sharks & bluefish kept all my crew really busy for hours at a time with so much action. There is absolutely no question that the great fishing we provided our customers was a direct result of how hard my crew worked. We even won a gentleman’s side bet with a few other high profile charter boats and crews in the Cape May area which is always a nice little extra bonus and I will be donating my winnings to a local charity that my wife is involved with. Overall all it turned out to be a great tournament for everyone on board the Hooked Up II and I thank each and everyone for their efforts and fishing with us. I am sure Jerry will post up some pictures soon as he was the designated photographer and took some great pictures the last two days. I am also sure he will mention the absolute monster size Mako that came up within a few feet of the boat while we were actively fighting two Blue Dogs and could not get pitch bait back to him as I think he had ideas of eating one of the sharks we were fighting. As soon as we released the sharks he followed them down and that was the last we saw of him. One of the biggest Makos I have ever seen inshore in my lifetime and I have seen my share since my first shark trip was back in 1978 of out in the deep at night over 500 lbs but they we all mostly Long Fin-Big Eyes females and this was the legal type of Mako (Short Fin). Rough guess anywhere around 300 lbs plus which is a very good size Mako these days inshore. It sure had our crew talking as everyone on board got a pretty good look at it as it was swimming right next and under the two Blue Sharks we were trying to release. It was pretty cool and it generated lots of conversation yesterday by everyone for the rest of the trip and last night at dinner. I have not seen any that big in a long time and congratulations to the crew of the Pirasea for their 305 lb Mako. That is one quality size inshore Mako especially these days.
We most all of our sharks were caught in 180-190 feet of water as we ran right to the legal limit of 60 miles both days. I am a believer that you are for the most part wasting your time fishing inshore if you want to catch a 200 lb plus Mako and that was our goal. I pick my location on where I feel the best water is over deep steep drop-offs and as far away from other boats as possible and the only boat I knew really around us was a good friend of my mine who comes down to Morehead City, NC and fishes Giant Bluefin with us in the winter and he followed us out in his boat both days and had the most points in the tournament for shark released as he beat us out by just a few points to the best of my knowledge. We use only 530 lb extra heavy mono leader of around 20 feet with a 5 foot shot of heavy single strand. Everything is wind-on till we get to the single stand so there is no wiring the fish with 15-18 feet of cable like in the past prior to using extra heavy mono leaders. We use put the mono leader at least 6 feet up into the 130 lb Jerry Brown spectra and they pass thru our guides without any problems and we prefer this type of connections and that is about all we use on our boat except when tuna fishing we use loop to loop connections with a Bimini Twist on the mono for top shots which we changed on all reels for the tournament. All our tops shots or extra heavy leaders came from Basil at BHP or Chuck at Tournament Cable plus we make our own for when tuna fishing. We used special chum in liquid form that we mix up in a 55 gallon drum that we dump over a few gallons at a time plus two 5 gallon frozen buckets one of which is Mackerel and the other fresh ground bunker. It costs us more to chum this way but I guarantee if you want sharks this is the way to do it and how many we brought to the boat in the tournament the last few days proves how effective our chum is. All the credit goes to mates Josh and Timmy and they prepared the chum and especially Timmy as he was in charge of this aspect for the tournament and did a fantastic job of bringing the sharks to us and keeping them around the boat for hours at a time. We had our mako on a big trap squid way far out down about 90 feet and the rest of the sharks pretty much everywhere from 90 feet up to 10 feet below the surface as there was not best depth or location. At time we were hand feeding Blue Sharks on light tackle with small hooks and 80 lb mono that they could bite through after a short fight. We hung some big Bluefish carcasses over board and the sharks were coming right up to the side of the boat trying to get at the caresses and we did bait and switch tactics and let the younger members of our charter fight the sharks this way. We probably could have caught and released 30 more sharks in the tournament if we had used wire or heavy mono with bigger hooks but did not want to deal with Blue Dogs wrapping themselves up in leader plus losing all the top quality expensive hooks we use in tournaments. We broke our long handle release gaff on Friday’s trip so we lost our share of tackle both days releasing so many Blue Dogs. Matter of fact on Friday’s trip we moved a couple of miles to get away from the Blue Fish and sharks plus we cut back big time on our chum. Out target was a qualifying Mako over 200 lbs and everything else was secondary but all the action made Mike’s younger sons and Mike senior that is in his late 60’s really happen as action is what they wanted. I think most readers will know what I mean as that is the name of charter fishing for most groups we take out.
Lots of radio chatter about some great inshore tuna fishing yesterday on small size Bluefins with some boats reporting up to 20 fish released. Did hear some talk about bigger fish way down to the south but that is not confirmed but we will be starting doing make-up tuna trips any day now as well as shark trips. We are available for Jim’s Bait and Tackle Shark Tournament as well next Saturday if anyone is interested in joining us for a very fun local Mako Tournament.
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