SJ Shark Tournament - Some Reel Desire Photos

[T380Fisher]

After fishing this tournament for many years, we finally were able to put a respectable fish on the dock.

This was my very first attempt at wiring a thresher shark and after releasing 4 sharks and aside from some bangstick problems (it wouldn't fire) we boated the biggest shark of the tournament.

Day 1 started off with a 175 class mako at 10:50 am, we released it. Then about 10 mins later, our second mako release; a much smaller one, approx. 80 lbs. We were excited that we could have a really good fishing day. At about 12:45, our first Blue shark release, 10 mins later, another blue release. OK, so a good day filled with spurts of action. We were set up along the 30 fathom line with 6 boats in the area and the boat immediately to our North fought and boated a big shark and left around noon. Then about 2 PM the boat immediately to the South of us boat a large shark and left. Man did we feel snake bitten, but as offshore fishing generally goes, wait a while and things can happen quick. At 3:50 PM our short line goes off. Only about 25 feet deep and floating....4 PM (yep 10 minutes) we see color and a tail about 15 feet behind the head. We thought it was a second fish but quickly realized it was GAME ON. This beautiful fish came right to the boat. I grabbed the leader pulled it to the boat and the bang stick failed and woke her. It swam immediately under the boat and dropped another 100 yards of line. Then turned back at us and we got another shot. Swivel came up, pulled her alongside the boat, bang stick failed again and really pissed this fish off. It sounded to the bottom and stayed there for just 10 mins. As our angler applied steady pressure, the thresher began to come up slow but steady. When we caught a glimpse of the swivel again, we decided it was gaff time without the bangstick, I wired it again and 1st gaff to the gills, 2nd (a flyer) in the tail and we had her boatside and tied up by 4:22 pm. It took another 20 mins of hard work to slide it onto the cockpit and we left the business end hang out and headed for the scales. Luckily the weather was nice and we made 28.5 knots back. About 1/2 way home we noticed the stomach was starting to come out of her mouth. We didn't want it to bite it off, so we pulled the fish the rest of the way in so we wouldn't lose any more weight.
We were "guestimating" this fish to be 350-400....what a pleasant surprise when the weighmaster called out 490. It was truly one of those "moments" in my life.

Day 2 was filled with tons of anxiety as we put up a really respectable fish, but with the amount of threshers being caught, there's bound to be a bigger one out there. We set up and hooked up with our first (and only) blue shark which we released. We had a blind pull that we figured was another blue shark, but it never hooked up. When the fishing day was over, the real tension started. We headed for the barn hoping...praying our fish would stand. As we got 5 miles offshore, our cell phones started to light up...family back at the scales were calling to give updates...a couple big threshers were coming in. One weighed in around 411, then the final one was around 421. At 7:20, you could hear a pin drop at our dock as nobody dared speak as we cleaned up the boat. We couldn't stand to go watch at the scales. Then the magic 7:30 hit and we were truly blessed to have our Day 1 fish stand. Thanks to everyone at South Jersey and all those that came out and cheered at the scales. Thanks to Sportfisherman.com for your excellent coverage, you have some really great shots of us at the scales. I have attached some that you don't have.