With all the crapy weather we had this year, this is only the MegaBytes second trip! But what a trip. I hooked up with 3 great guys
for the Hudson Anglers fishing tournament. I had heard that this is Americas largest shark-only tournament. The new crew are the Rosenbluth brothers
I met because we share a passion for Aruba and spoke of it often on the docks at Bay Park Fishing
Station. We were to meet at 3:30 am at Bay Park, alas, I was 20 minutes late. The Aruba boys were about an hour late. Around 5am we headed off to
Jones inlet for the official start. We blasted out of the inlet at the contest start time of 6am & got to our "not-so-secret" spot around 8am and set up to fish.
It was dead! DEAD! Except for bluefish by the thousands, which we were hooking on a light rods and we were using for fresh bait (but those buggers
were eating all our fine chark bait!)... Then, finally, around 1:30 a line starts to sing. Mark (he's 20, built like his brothers a tree stump with muscles)
grabs the rod and works in the fish. A blue shark around 50 pounds... Only... wait... what's that? Teeth marks all over his back & stomach. This shark was bitten by
another shark 2 or 3 times. It was big enough to get it's mouth around the entire body of the blue... Mako? It sure looked like it to me. We were hopeful.
Then I saw it... 55 miles off shore with the weather turning rotten, a fin cuts through the water and heads for a balloon on a close set line. It was a Big shark!
A MAKO!!! The damn thing had passed up all our fine baits and was trying to eat our balloon. Then it tangled in the line and was gone. That was it I
figured. The crew got depressed so I told them of a story when I caught a small Mako 4 times. (except I knew that was because it was a baby)... About
20 minutes later, we see a dark shadow under the boat. She came back. What a big brute. Tommy manages toentice the fish to eat off a rod I made
myself 3 years ago and never caught anything substantial on yet. The lightest rod on the boat spooled with 50 pound test. Drag set at 18 pounds. Tommy
leans back and strikes hard 2, 3, 4 times. The fish launches itself out of the water and times stands still.... We are looking up 10 feet in the air at a 200
pound posessed monster that is both beautiful and scary at the same time. She summersaults and lands making a tremendous splash! After 1 hour, with all
3 brothers on the rod, me running the boat and being wire man (4 times because we couldn't get the gaff through that thick hide) and ton of other mishaps...
we finally gaffed that monster. oh no, 4pm.... 6 pm weigh in and 50 miles out... some quick math & I know that my 21 knot boat is in trouble... and the fish
is still in the water very much alive!!! We open the tuna door and carefully slide this live Mako in the boat, tie her up by her tail and head (much to the
dismay of the third brother Steve who was ordered to get into the cabin and "shut up" by his other brothers), head north and I punch the throttles! With my
engines screaming, we blasted though the 6 foot waves as best we could. We ran right smack through the middle of a thunderstorm and didn't pause a
second. We check in with the tournament boat and the official time, 6:12. 12 minutes late. $$$ down the tubes. We weighed her in anyway (she was
STILL alive). A marine biologist examined the fish, we took her back on the boat and headed for home. We got about 100 pounds of prime steaks out of
it & a good story. The official weight was 192. The 3 qualifying fish were 205, 193 & 150. We had 3rd place. Maybe second or first if we had more time.
In our haste, the fish sat on the deck in the sun and wind for over 2 hours. Normaly I would have iced her down and maybe preserved 10 pounds or so.
Good Fishing - Captain John