Crew: Don, Jim and Jeff
Water Temp: 72.0
Tide: All
Wind: South West
Conditions: Day 1 Sunny and calm Day 2 Bumpy w/ Storms
Caught: Thresher (lost), Dusky, mako, Blueshark
Headed out with JimF, JeffF and DonP.
This was a seasoned crew that I have fished with in the past.
I left the dock very comfortable with this crew and very positive that if given the opportunity to take a large fish, it would be done safely.
Day One
Headed out at 4am and pointed the boat east.
We made good time past the acid barge, past the gully to a no named spot of water with a good temp break.
Set lines out that included a deep bait, a thirty foot bait, a sixty foot bait and a live blue fish.
After two hours of watching the balloons the live bait reel starts to scream – the hook is set and the battle is on.
This is a good fish, but beatable (not like last weeks monster that was fought for 7 ½ hours at OakBluffs).
We take turns on the fish - First Jim
Then Don (No Picture)
Then me!
After two hours of doing everything right we catch a glimpse of the fish and it appears to have strips on the tip of its tail – it then runs out 150 feet of line, we debate but think it might be a tiger shark (not weighable, waste of time) but we aren’t sure.
We now want to indentify the fish, so we switch out the rod man. Fitted with a bucket harness Jeff is able to apply an enormous amount of pressure to the fish.
For over an hour we work to get the fish back up, thumbing the reel to keep this “waste of time fish” from taking any more line.
As a larger shape appears under the boat we quickly realize that the striped tip we saw before was just the tip of a huge thresher’s tail, easily 400 lbs….
This fish is now doing death circles 20 feet below the boat, every time getting a few more inches, the leader is four feet – three feet – two feet – one foot – FOUR INCHES – one swipe of the fishes enormous tail rips out 10 foot of line, thumb on the spool – line breaks (there is no forgiveness in 10 foot of 80lb mono)
We are disappointed to say the least, but it happens.
Lines back out and be pick up either a dusky or a brown shark (cant quite tell the difference)
Right at closing time we picked up a short Mako.
Day Two
Headed back to the same general area and set up shop.
Some thunder clouds could be see in the distance as we started the slick.
A nice run off on the live bluefish resulted in a broken line (we thought maybe the fish got tail wrapped in the line)
The second run off resulted in the line breaking again.
These two break offs were on the same thresher rod from the day before, not sure if the line was permanently damaged, but we took the rod out of commission.
Fishing the rest of the day was slow, had mahi in the slick and managed to catch a nice bull mahi on a shark rig – back out he went as a live bait.
Strong thunder storms were coming so we throttled up to New Harbor Block –waited out an amazing storm and then flew home.
This is the fast I have driven this boat, a solid 36 mph home!
It didn’t take long to get to the new marina.Left the boat dirty and went home.
It was a real fun time, but I really want to weight a fish.
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