Posted on 06/04/2013 3:19:40 PM PDT by South40
An 11-foot-long mako shark, weighing in at 1,323.5 pounds, is no tall tale. The shark, caught off the southern California coast, was reeled in by Jason Johnston of Mesquite, Texas, and its size might be a world record.
The angler made the giant catch—using chopped fish as bait—while on a charter fishing trip off Huntington Beach, Calif., on Monday. It didn’t come easy, reports CBS Los Angeles.
“He took out a quarter-mile of line ... and five times he came out of the water over 20 feet,” Johnston told the station. “It was amazing.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Catching a Mako is tops on my bucket list (equal to seeing the Northern lights). Great fight, good eating and just about as exciting as one can get. Great catch!!
I caught a mako back in the 80s but it was nowhere near that size. Just over 6’.
“Black ... like doll’s eyes”
uh-oh. better get Mako!
Or like Jase in the season finale ‘...just try not to think about the sharks...’
I am SO JEALOUS! How long did you fight it? Did it jump?
“Sometime he go away...somtime he wouln’t go away”.
Our charter boat (on which I was deckhand) once hooked (but could not land) what seems now to be a world-record soup-fin shark.
We had it close to our 50 foot boat, and it was about half the length. So we figured it was around 22 feet long.
Then it ran, and there was no holding back. Snap!
Yes, the Mako - the agressive cousin to the Great White
Never had a chance to boat it as all tackle was for the tuna. Fought it for about five minutes, until its teeth cut the line.
It jumped completely out of water, about 50' from the transom, a spectacular sight I'll never forget.
I assume they killed it before landing it? Gun?
Happened to me once, though mine was a bit bigger’n that....but it got away.
The one I caught wasn’t quite dead when we got it on board the boat; big mistake. It grabbed my friend’s foot and pulled his shoe off It then proceeded to shred the upholstery while we clubbed it. And it was much smaller than this.
I didn't catch it, though the one I caught was in those same waters off of Huntington Beach. And the article says, "He took out a quarter-mile of line ... and five times he came out of the water over 20 feet".
Hemmingway has great stories of tuna fishing in the Catalina channel in the 1940’s-50’s — hooked Mako’s would leap into the boat at the bow and work their way down the line of upright anglers standing at the rails - sawing and snapping through the leg bones of the unfortunate. Truly a magnificent animal.
Not long before Jaws came out, my brothers,father and I were out trolling for marlin out of Mission Bay, San Diego. I hooked into what I hoped was a marlin, but after one long fight, it was a 12 foot great white. I wa using a 6/0 Penn reel with heavy line.
The transom of my father’s boat is just over 12 feet and it was the full width of it. While it had hit on a brand new and somewhat expensive lure, none of us wanted to get close to it. I was able to finally pull the lure out and it swam off.
I was bummed that I spent so much time and effort for what I had hoped was a marlin. The good news was that it didn’t have the attributes of Jaws.
Though we were fishing for shark, the 6’ mako I caught was luck. Four friends and I were fishing off the coast of Huntington Beach and at one point we noticed our boat was being circled by a shark. It just happened that at that time I was the only one with my line out of the water and I had just baited with a fresh anchovy. I cast the anchovy just in front of the circling shark and it took it. Aside from a sand shark caught in the surf it was the only other shark I have ever caught.
HOOKUP!!
Way back we vacationed in Mission Bay and we would go out about 20 miles (near the Coronado Islands) and catch albacore.
It was quite a sight to see small 12 year old kids fighting 20-25lb albacore on 20lb test line.
Each of us would last about two or three fish before we ran out of steam. There was a cannery in Mission Bay (Seaforth)where we took the fish for canning. It is long gone and now the travel is a lot further than 20 miles for the Albacore. Great times, though.
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