Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
A few weeks ago we hooked a large thresher shark in it’s “fin,” and to say the least, the resulting fight was long and anything but routine. We hooked the fish at about 9:30 in the morning on a beautiful calm and sunny day and at first everything went just fine. The shark took a bait under a float and after making a short run it came up to the surface just long enough for us to identify what we were dealing with, but then it just kept going and going and going! With the 50-pound tackle making no noticeable dent in it’s progress, we knew that we’d have to start-up and go after the thresher or risk being spooled. So we tied a float to our chum bucket and cast it from the boat and off we went.
An hour later when another glimpse of the shark revealed that the hook was not in the mouth but in the base of the right pectoral fin, we realized that the fight was going to be more challenging than we originally thought. Hoping to get the fish to the boat “sooner” than “later” to facilitate a healthy release, we elected to push the drag up to full and put as much pressure on it as we thought the tackle could withstand – and that’s when things started to go south!
About two hours into the fight, the handle broke off the reel, leaving absolutely no way to recover line. Try as I might, I was not able to reattach the handle and it was obvious that our only chance of getting the shark was to switch the line (and the fish) over to another rod. So we stripped about 100-yards from the reel of a second rod, cut the line going to the fish, and retied it with a very quick blood knot to the new rod. With that mission completed we thought we were good-to-go - then a guide on the new rod broke and the shattered frame began to badly chafe the line which required us to, again, pause the fight long enough to cut the broken parts away.
Without that one guide the line was chafing on the rod whenever it would flex so that the angler was no longer able to pull back and apply the needed pressure on the fish to bring the fight to an end. So I had little option but to have my mate gently hand-over-hand the line in as the angler worked the rod as best he could. To those of you who are shaking your heads right now and grumping about the fact that our tactics weren’t in line with IGFA sportfishing guidelines, I’ll remind you that those rules went off the boat back when we tried to fix the reel. At this point we were just trying to get that sucker to the boat anyway possible so we could get our tag attached and send the shark on it’s merry way - to heck with fair chase!
Anyway, the hand-over-hand thing ended up applying just enough extra pressure to turn the tide on the shark and in short order we had it along side the boat, tag in place, hook removed and off it went – finally!
The lesson from that little episode is that anglers should always be ready to deal with the unexpected problems that can pop up during the heat of a battle with any fish. Anything can happen and there’s really no way to prepare for all the possibilities. You just have to work through them as they come along.
For instance, particularly for those who drive inboard vessels, it’s not uncommon to have a hooked fish make a pass under the boat and get the line wrapped around the rudder or prop. Unless you’re really lucky, it’s almost impossible to clear such a fouled line by sticking the rod tip down in the water and sweeping it to the stern. There are, however, other options anglers can use if they are able to react quickly enough. Once they know they’re fouled, the first thing an angler should do is to loosen the drag so the line can run freely across the snag without being cut, this will buy them some time to get the line cleared one way or the other. From there, one option is for someone to literally jump into the water, swim under the boat and clear the line. Of course this option should only be considered if safety issues like cold water or rough seas are not present. Another option is to try and catch the line on the fish-side of the snag with a gaff or boat hook and then lightly hand-line the fish in, or cut the line on both sides of the snag and then retie it to itself.
Something else anglers sometimes find themselves confronting is what to do if they are about to get spooled by a fish. It doesn’t matter if you’re fishing with an ultra light spinning reel or a huge conventional reel, there is always the chance of hooking a mega-size “something” that’s bent on putting much distance between you and it in the shortest time possible. Usually, anglers can simply start their engines and run after a fish before it get all their line. But it’s not always that easy. Those fishing from an anchored boat are not always able to get underway in time before the line is all gone and neither are those fishing from the shore or from a bridge or pier. More than once, just before being spooled, I had to snap the line from one rod to the reel of another and throw the first rod in the water and fight it on the second rod until the fish tires and we could get the first rod back aboard. It sounds a little crazy but it works. Just make sure that the second rod has thicker line than the first to minimize the chance of losing the fish AND the rod!
I was once given a reel from a new tackle company to field-test for them. For a few weeks it was working pretty well until one day when a client was fighting a tuna, the foot that connects reel to rod separated from the reel leaving the angler holding the rod in one hand and the reel in the other. The tuna wouldn’t hold still long enough for us to cut and tie the line to another rod, so two crew members had to help by one holding the reel while the other one cranked and the angler just held the rod. Yea it was a pretty goofy way to land a fish but it worked. Needless to say, the new reel didn’t exactly pass the field test!
It doesn’t matter if it’s a blue marlin or a bluefish, if it’s on the line for more than just a few minutes it’s going to tax the strength and reliability of your rod, reel, line, leader, hook, swivel and every knot between you and the fish, and things can happen that will require a fast solution to a problem you could never have anticipated. But “where there’s a will there’s a way”. Anglers who can think things through and are willing to get a little creative can often find a solution to even the most obscure problems that come along.
Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and Captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.