This morning Jeremy and I met before the sun came up with the intention of putting something big on deck. It was one of those mornings when dawn lights the sky with a glow that has a mirror reflection on the water’s glassy surface. The ocean was absolutely flat calm and it was a perfect day to run and look for surface feeding tuna. The night before, Jeremy had been fishing with Rhodyflyguy and they saw a few small pods of bluefin tuna and Jeremy hooked up to his first bonito of the year. The bonito are such cool fish and always great to see their return to inshore waters each year. But we had a goal to venture a little further off shore and it was the ideal day to go further out. We marked the GPS put the throttle down and pressed on. After running for a while with land clear out of sight we began to see signs of off shore life. Large schools of small bait were being harassed by sea birds, monster bluefish, false albacore and bonito. Now, on any other in shore day the false albacore and bonito would be a coveted find and a very rewarding fly rod hook up. But in this water these fish are the bait and we started to keep a few just in case we needed to chum up some tuna or draw in some sharks. The stern of the boat became a bloody mess and we pushed further on. We saw a few pods of bluefin tuna pop and while we were slowly moving and waiting for them to surface again, we saw a fin in the distance. It was a shark just free swimming on the surface eating what seemed to be an easy meal left behind from a commercial fishing trawler. Jeremy slowly nosed closer, shut off the engine and tossed a small chunk of false albacore in the sharks direction. Then another small piece right near the boat which the shark lazily inhaled. It was a nice blue shark and with 2 small pieces of false albacore we lured him within very close casting range. I dunked my big white flatwing fly into the puddle of albie blood on the deck of the boat and threw it in front of the shark. A couple of small twitches and he took the fly. From then on it was a tug of war and for the most part the shark was in control. I finally fought him to the boat and grabbed the leader releasing him to kill another day. Team work and a window of good weather was the key to our success in catching this beautiful bluewater species on the fly.
Ed .. That was one of the best experiences ever! It was so cool to just see that shark in open water and sneak up slowly on him … lure him in with a couple small pieces of bait .. and then watch him come up and analyze your fly and then take it … I will never forget that .. Because it was so glass calm, it was all so visual and while I sit here tonight thinking back on it .. it replays in my mind in slow motion … Glad you brought along the 14 weight … would have been a tough/long battle with our 9 weight bonito/albie fly rods ….. Great day man! Always a pleasure fishing with you. Hope we get a few more lucky days like this throughout this season and if the fish gods are half as kind as they were today .. it will be a great 2008 season!
I see the shark and it begs the question, where is Austin? Are you seeing Stripers along the shore or do you have to use the boat. Sounds like, you really have to work for each fish, are the runs of stripers off this year?
Wow, certainly one of the best fishtales fliesandfins.com has ever seen. I love the picture of the shark at the surface, and it’s great to see that the bonito showed up as well. It is cool that you didn’t have to go through the usual routines that shark fishing often requires, ie setting out huge chum slicks and waiting hours for the sharks to come. Nice work ed and jeremy!
that is incredible guys! way to press on and what a rush it must have been to get up close and personal with that toothy killing machine. What kind of shark is it?
dam…Thats killer.. shark on a fly..good work
Wow that sounds pretty intense. Nice work. I’m sure you were able to put your drag system to the test.
Got to love seeing a shark on the end of a fly rod that is just plain awesome. I’m sure the drag was screaming that day.