Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
As the saying goes, history has a way of repeating itself. I knew what I wanted to write about in this, my fourth column of the year. Just for grins I looked through some of my Fish Stories from years past and it turns out that I wrote about the same topic in my fourth column of 2019. Granted my fourth column last year came out in the end of May or beginning of June and this year it will hit the streets at the start of July, but as we know, it is 2020. Everything is a little bass ackwards and turned around.
A few weeks ago I received a private message on Facebook from a high school buddy of mine, Jay. We had last run into each other while tailgating in the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Center in Philly prior to an Iron Maiden concert sometime last summer. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I had seen him before that. Probably in the late 90s or early 2000s. It had definitely been a while since I had seen my old school chum. The gist of his message was that he wanted to see some chum. Menhaden chum that is. He wanted to book a shark fishing charter.
Shark charters were very popular in the late 70s (probably had something to do with a movie about a big shark somewhere up in New England that supposedly injured some bathers) and that popularity carried through the 1990s. I can remember running a dozen or more shark charters most years during the month of June. A majority of the days we encountered sharks of some kind, and our prized catch was the mako. This was due in part to the aggressive, often acrobatic, fighting style of the mako, and also because mako makes a mighty tasty meal.
In the early 90s the National Marine Fisheries Service enacted management measures for shark conservation. This wasn’t a bad idea, other than the minimum size was not large enough and the creel limit was too small. Shark fishermen had an unwritten, but widely understood, rule that any mako under one hundred pounds should be released. The NMFS scientists decided that 54 inches would make a good minimum size. A 54 incher weighs about 60 pounds. Like I said, not strict enough. The creel limit, on the other fin, was way too strict. One pelagic shark per trip. That was it. If you caught a keeper mako in the morning you had to make the decision of whether to harvest your table fare fish early or take a chance on a bigger one later. God forbid you kept a Mako in the morning and hooked a trophy Thresher in the afternoon. Too bad. No more sharks for you!!! These measures put a huge kibosh on the Shark charter industry. Other than the hardcore shark addicts, people just didn’t want to spend their hard earned money for potentially only one keeper fish.
The 90s turned into the 2000s and I found myself doing less and less shark charters. With the exception of the Mako Mania and Ocean City Shark Tournaments I was sharking maybe twice per season. I caught some makos as incidental by-catch while trolling for Marlin and Tuna, but that was all. I gotta tell you. I really missed it!
When my old pal Jay said he wanted to go shark fishing I was pretty excited over the idea, but I was also a little apprehensive because we didn’t really know where the makos had been hanging out lately. Other than the ones that were feeding on the tunas out in the canyons (see Fish Story Number 4, 2019- it was a problem then and it is a problem now). Our standard Shark trip itinerary doesn’t allow for a canyon run. I was also a little worried that we might be too late in the season. Historically speaking, my old log books show a decline in our catch rate the later we got in the month of June, and Jay’s trip was slated for the 23rd.
So there we were, drifting near the Hambone lump with our chum pot out and three fresh bluefish filets impaled on circle hooks. Our chumming started at 10 am. The earlier part of our morning was spent on Fenwick Shoal catching Snapper Blues and Spanish Mackerel. The Blues make good shark bait and the Spaniards are pretty good on the plate. Our first shark bite came at 10:15. As soon as the line came tight and the hook was set a small mako started jumping. Success! The target species was on the line. A few minutes and photos later the 50 ish pound fish was swimming away with its fresh new lip piercing. I was relieved. The day was far from over however.
We didn’t get all the lines reset in our chum slick before we had another mako on. Number 2 was closer to 75 pounds. Like Number 1, this one was also set free. Our three baits were redeployed and in minutes we were hooked up again! We were hoping that 3 would be our lucky number and the third mako of the day would be a keeper sized fish. Under the old NMFS rules Number 2 would have been eligible for a ride to happy hour at Micky Fins. The new rules, however, followed a little bit of my old advice and raised the minimum size. The problem is that now it is too large (in my opinion). Males have to be 71 inches and females have to be 83 inches. Actually the 71 inches for a male does not bother me too much. That is a 140 pounder, give or take. Our third shark turned out to not be a mako though. Shark number 3 was a different flavor. It was a Dusky, which is protected (and none too tasty) so it was sent packing.
We had stumbled on to some good shark fishing! Shortly after the Dusky was released bite number 4 happened. There was no doubting that this was a mako, it was jumping all over the place! Watching the jumps my mate, Mr. Evans, and I saw that this was a little bit bigger fish. Maybe getting close to that magic 71 inches. When we got the mako next to the boat we realized that it would be a little shy of that length though. And also a little shy of being a male. When I peeked under its tail I saw that mako number 3 (Shark number 4) was a lady. I tipped my hat to her and we all watched her swim away.
We had to wait a little while for our next bite. But not that long. Maybe a half hour. Boom! Another mako! This one took to the air on the bite as well. Another close one. If it had boy parts. Which it didn’t. Farewell and Adieu to another fair lady. But wow. Four makos and it was barely past lunch.
Not past feeding time though. mako number 5 had great vertical ability too. Highest jumper of the day! At least three of the jumps were higher than ten feet out of the water. Awesome air! And I guess I will give the spoiler alert now. Biggest fish we would encounter for the day. Mr. Evans and I could tell right away that this fish would be a keeper if its aquatic gender reveal party had a blue theme. Number 5 gave it a heck of a go and my anglers were pretty worn out already so they took turns passing the rod back and forth. Finally after 35 minutes or so I was holding the leader and discussing the lack of male makos with the crew. She was an extremely curvy shark of close to 200 pounds. But much like the guy holding the leader, she was not much longer than she was wide, and nowhere near 83 inches. Yet again a beautiful lady shot us down when we wanted her to come to happy hour with us.
The last hour of the day was probably the most exciting. Yup. You read that correctly. After 5 makos and a nice Dusky things got even more exciting. Mako number 6 was another fish in the 125 to 150 pound class. She was kind of unique, oh yeah, of course another female, in that she had a gouge on her head that looked like a bite mark from another shark. As we were releasing her another mako came through the spread. We had just snipped the leader on number 6. I threw a bait in the water and wouldn’t you know it, number 6 knew we would let her go and she ate again! Right next to the boat. I could see the gouge on her head as plain as the nose on my face. Luckily I kept her occupied while Mr. Evans hooked lucky number 7. Lucky because she, yes she, was also going to be released as she was roughly the same size as hungry number 6. Oh yeah, and while all of this was going on, you guessed it, number 8 cruised into the mix. Number 6 was snipped off again, now sporting tow lip piercings and number 7 was given walking papers as well. Surprisingly enough Ms. 6 was still hungry. Mr. Evans had to throw a hookless bait away from the boat to get her attention so I could give number 8 a bait. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, it was Ladies’ Night in my chum slick. The 8th lady was almost identical to her two gal pals and we turned her loose to round out the day. 8 makos released 9 times. And a Dusky. An incredible day of shark fishing.
Just like last year’s Fish Story #4 I am going to say that there is no shortage of sharks in the Mid Atlantic. They must just be good at hiding from the fish counting scientists that think they are overfished and in short supply. Also I will say that the minimum size requirement seems a little off. 5 fish that were easily over 100 pounds. All females. None allowed to be kept. That’s a tough one to tell the guys that booked the charter. We all had a great day though, and it was nice to be spending a little time shark fishing in June again…
