Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
A bunch of years ago, a friend of mine hooked an estimated 350-pound mako on 16-pound test line. At the time the world record for a mako shark on that class tackle was somewhere in the 200 to 300 lb. range and the three of us aboard the boat that day knew that if the angler could hold up long enough to actually go the distance with the shark that there would surely be a lot more than just a story of a big fish to talk about at the end of the day.
So the fight went on, for hour, after hour, after hour, and in process it seemed as though we chased the shark with the boat from one end of the ocean to the other, and when it was finally over, the by-then exhausted angler had fought the fish standing-up and without assistance for a total of 11-hours, and yes, he was glad it was over!
The outcome of the fight? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before I get into “the rest of the story” let me say that the whole episode began the same way I’ve seen so many other long-term battles get started - with an angler who was just cocky enough to claim that he was willing, even eager, to go one-on-one with a fish for many hours if that’s what it’s going to take to land it.
I remember as a kid being just brash enough to make the same kind of statement about wanting to fight a fish for a long time. I thought it would be “fun” and I was just “bad enough” to do it. That was until the day I did five and a half hours on an 80-pound class rod one afternoon, only to lose the fish at the boat. Not exactly the fastest learner in the class, a year later I did a rematch with a similar fish, only this time it was six-hours and I actually won the match. The fish wasn’t so happy about the ordeal, but I managed to return home with a state record catch and the newfound knowledge that no matter what the outcome, it’s sometimes better to watch someone else catch a fish than to be the one doing the pulling and cranking.
Now that I’m in the charter business, I don’t have to worry about being the guy on the boat tasked with the job of sweating over a fishing rod for multiple hours. That’s my clientele’s job. Mine is to drive the boat and let them strain their arms and break their backs on fish that they are probably going to release anyway. Amazingly enough, I actually have a lot of repeat clients who keep coming back year after year for more of the same type of punishment. They get off the boat all tired, beat up, arms hanging limp at their sides, squawking about chiropractors and wondering if they’ll be any good at work the next day. Then, of all things, they pay me for the providing them the experience and often put down a deposit for next year!
None of this “pay for pain” makes any more sense now than it did 28-years ago when I got into this business, but as long as people keep asking to go fishing I guess I’ll keep taking their money and doing my best to provide offshore experiences that include sore muscles and blistered hands. I’m even thinking that some day I’ll offer a special, half-price deal where instead of going out on the water we just line everyone up on the dock under a hot mid-day sun and I spend an hour or two whacking their arms and backs with a baseball bat. The end results for them should be much the same, but they won’t have to pack a lunch for the day and I’ll save a lot of fuel. Seems like a win-win for both of us!
Which all brings me back to that marathon battle with the potential world record mako. After 11-hours it was finished, and my buddy pried his left hand from the foregrip of the rod, slumped down into a boat seat and with a great sigh of relief blurted out, “I’m just glad that it’s over!” And it was, because after all that time the line finally parted and the shark was gone! Too tired and too sore to worry about a fish he didn’t catch or a record he didn’t set, my friend spent the next couple days recovering from his day of “fishing.” Three days later I get a call from him, “Hey Mark when can we go fishing again? I want a rematch with that fish.” And I thought I was a slow learner!
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”.
