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.
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.
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.