Advice & Info: Sharks - handy hints on catching them and a bit of a yarn

The night before we had planned to leave at first light and do half a day marlin trolling and the other half shark drifting. But Ginge, sleeping on the beach that night, got attacked by some ravenous critter that left him with a swollen lip that protruded some three inches beyond his nose. And while this was hilarious to look at, and damned hard for me to keep a straight face, it was also the reason for the late start.

Ginge, the blouse, under no circumstances wanted to be seen in public until the lip reduced some. With this swelling taking half the day to subside it effectively put an end to our little morning trolling escapade before it even started and that was a shame for as we headed out through glassy seas we passed an amazing array of life. Sunfish, dolphins, birds - they were all there and the water just screamed marlin; to say I was tempted to troll was an understatement.

I was fair frothing at the mouth. But with time limited it was either one or the other and given the choice of a shark drift or a troll I'll take the shark drift every time. These, unlike any trolling sessions, rarely fail to produce, and being such visual affairs they are often darned exciting - you just never know whether the next fish up will be a four-pound blue or a 1000lb mako and it's not just Noahs that turn up. Tuna, mainly skippies, put in appearances and once we had a huge swordie of outstanding proportions glide past, giving us both a case of the jitters.

Cruising over to our prime mako spot, found through trial and error, I positioned the boat so we would drift over the general area and cut the engine. We had over 20kg of minced tuna a few whole tuna and 15 koi carp with us to do a hell slick, and while I started the monotonous job of a continuous berley trail Ginge rigged up a hookless koi teaser and drifted it some fifty metres down the slick. The reasons why the bait (teaser) was put out with no hook in it were several. The two main ones in this case was that, rather than catch the Noahs, we really just wanted to watch, feed, and take photos of them; and secondly, we could have a shark that's reluctant to swim to the boat and the teaser, if taken, would alert us that a shark was in the vicinity so we could react accordingly.

Berleying from such a low down platform, one doesn't really get a good view of what is coming up the slick. Most times the sharks will let their presence be known by nailing the hookless teaser but on odd occasions they will miss the teaser and arrive boatside taking you by surprise. This was indeed the case today.

One minute I'm leaning over the side watching miniature koheru darting about in the slick mixture of tuna and mashed pillies and the next there's a decent mako eyeballing me. Before we could even yell the word 'mako' the bruiser had the outboard leg in its mouth and while nearly all the makos I've encountered before will nudge or tentatively mouth the leg and prop, normally after a cautious circle or two, this mean looking mother wanted to eat it.

Although I doubt that it would have gone 200lb it wouldn't have been far off and it certainly had enough size to do some damage and I rather hastily pushed her off. With it's fast departure we feared we may have spooked it. But this was not the case for two minutes later that neat looking dorsal sliced the water as the mako made a bee-line straight for the boat.

This blue Noah was hot to trot and obviously very hungry, for again she swam straight to the bow and gave it a bump with sufficient force to swing the boat around.

On its next pass beside the boat I held out a koi chunk and the staunch mako took it from my hand. This was a buzz. Just getting such a good looking wild critter to swim around the boat in plain view is damned exciting, but to actually hand feed one as well is just the icing on the cake. After half an hour another much smaller mako of perhaps 60lb joined our little get together this fish was understandably much more cautious with the big lass around and it took Ginge quite a while to coax this turkey to take fish from his hand.

After two hours of feeding and just admiring these sleek, beautifully proportioned creatures, Ginge decided he wanted to catch one.

I was a bit reluctant to do this. Catching Noahs in these situations when you've just been hand-feeding them just does not seem right and if we did I would have to drive the boat this would mean a broken berley trail and with no berley container, goodbye makos.

However the lure of a mako jumping is a sight to behold and one that I will never get sick of, and besides, I was keen to try and nail some aerial acrobats with my still camera so I somewhat reluctantly agreed.

Ginge rigged the 10kg outfit with a 200lb wind-on leader, four feet of 300lb single strand and a small 7/0 hook. Since we wouldn't be removing the hook from those ivories, a smaller hook would be much better for the shark's welfare. I started the outboard and Ginge held the bait on the surface awaiting the sharks arrival. The plan was for Ginge to sink the hook the moment the shark took the bait. This would amount in a clean jaw hook-up where it would do no harm.

Once this was achieved, I with the outboard already going, would beat the hell out of there. Having a mako with big nasty fangs doing some somersaults fifteen feet above your head in a small boat (or any size boat for that matter) while you're trying to start the boat to get out o f the way is as unhealthy as it gets.

I suggested to Ginge that he should nail the smaller Noah on 6kg which would be much easier to handle boatside but as these words left my lips Ginge was presenting his loaded hook to the bigger lass. A second later Ginge struck and came up solid and I realised I'd been talking to the mutton birds and with a quick shake of my head put the boat into gear and took off like a cut cat.

Fifty metres away I slowed the boat. The mako was unconcerned and slowly wallowed on the surface where we had hooked it. I hoped we had hooked a goer rather than a fizzer as quite a number of makos just will not perform. In fact, makos are extremely unpredictable in their fighting habits.

Ginge started going hard out and put in some wild rod work to get the beast annoyed. It certainly worked in a big way, with the rod suddenly buckling over as the shark kicked in the after burners and line fair melted off the spool. Three hundred metres away the Noah got airborne in a spectacular ten-foot somersault with the jump no more than twenty metres off the bow of a tuna boat. It would have made a prime photo had I not missed it.

Ginge was yahooing and kept yelling out, "Did you see that?!"  He was totally stoked. Though he'd been in the vicinity of jumping whalers and makos before, he was always the one to miss out. Now he had broken his duck.

That tuna boat was a bit of a worry and, not wanting to get cut off by its hull, we gave chase to take some control of this situation. In the next half an hour another two big jumps happened which I again missed on film - missed seeing altogether - although Ginge saw them and kept yelling every few minutes, "Did you see that?!  That was unbelievable!".

After a failed attempt at tracing, the shark went deep, very deep, and things got tedious. By slowly circling we could easily plane the beast up but then it would take off down deep again. In 150m of water I was glad we were on a mako rather than a whaler, for with their bigger pectorals they are much harder to budge from such depths. It was twenty minutes of fairly exhausting rod and boat work before the pattern shifted and the call of slack line was given. Ginge thought the terminals had given out but I was not convinced and powered the boat forward - and just as well for fifty metres behind the boat a big splash announced the fact that out guest in the blue overcoat had come back to greet us. Still powering ahead we had just got everything up tight again when Ginge gave the call of slack line. I booted it and was on the plane when Ginge yelled, 'Faster, it's right on our tail!'.

Quickly turning around I spied the mako ten metres behind the prop. Taking evasive action, I was somewhat startled to see the shark change direction with me - accidentally, most probably, but even so it was still pretty hairy. A quick acceleration from this rocket could put an unwelcome passenger in our laps.

I veered off to one side and thankfully the shark didn't but once the slack was taken up and the shark again became airborne, which I missed seeing as well. So much for the photo opportunities.

This was quite a nerve-wracking experience for me although Ginge was having a hell of a time. The Noah slowed after this and since we had been on the critter for more than an hour I decided I had better harden up and trace it. In a bigger boat where one can stand and tuck the knees into the side, tracing is no problem, especially on a relatively small fish as this one was. But when you're in a 12 foot tinny, things become complicated - especially with makos. With both wire cutters and knives at the ready the gloves were pulled on and ten minutes later I took a wrap. For a split second I thought I was in for a rather docile hook removal and then all hell broke loose. Stretched out to the limits with one hand underneath the seat I could do nothing but hang on as the shark hit overdrive.

I could have got Ginge to cut the wire as my hands were totally preoccupied but for the shark's sake it would be better to wait until it calmed down and cut the wire at the hook. And besides, Ginge was not for cutting the wire yet as this was not only his biggest fish but also the best scrap he had had and he wanted photos.

As is always the case, just as Ginge got the camera out the 300lb single-strand, possibly kinked from an earlier jump, broke and Mrs Mako departed from the scene. Ginge was exasperated but he was on a huge high. The mako had fought well and the scrap had been interesting but as Ginge said, it wasn't the scrap that got him going but those wicked jumps. I had to agree: full blown mako jumps are awe inspiring.

Both of us were in a good mood and with still a pile of berley in the boat and three hours of daylight left, I suggested we should forget makos and go and rustle up some blues.

Ginge thought this sounded pretty good and off we went to find the elusive blue shark. While I've encountered the odd blue around our mako hotspot I've certainly encountered better numbers much further out to sea in what Ginge calls barren wasteland.

Having arrived at the barren wasteland, we got the slick underway but things were slow and unlike earlier the drift was uncomfortable. The wind had risen and although only 12-15 knots it was blowing us further offshore and, since we were already a long way out, this tended to play on my mind. Also, berleying in these conditions is much more labour intensive.

After two hours with dusk approaching I was starting to seriously think of heading home and gradually picked up the berley pace. Ginge brought in the teaser and chucked it into the burley. This floated down the slick but only covered thirty odd metres before a long snout s tuck out of the water and chomped down on it. Both of us simultaneously yelled 'bluey' and immediately the brightness onboard increased ten-fold. Ginge quickly rigged up another teaser and I waved a tuna frame in the water with one hand and scooped burley with the other. I only hoped the shark, upon eating the four 1lb carp, hadn't eaten its fill and left. This proved, thankfully, not to be the case for Ginge's teaser suddenly took off.

Quickly grabbing the rod, Ginge smoothly pulled the hookless bait out of its gob and slowly wound it to the boat. Swimming behind the koi was a handsome 6-foot blue shark and accompanying this majestic beast were at least 15 pilot fish.

I've seen plenty of blues before but I'm always struck by their beauty and gracefulness. Blues may lack the explosive power of makos but, man, they still are one impressive-looking fish and anyone that reckons they aren't should open their eyes and get real.

Ginge held out a koi chunk and the bluey obliged and took it from his hand at a much slower pace than the makos. All of a sudden another three blues cruised into the slick and these were followed in the next fifteen minutes by three more. This was brilliant: we were hand-feeding sharks left, right and centre and it was all I could have hoped for. But things got even better when a big mother blue, possibly more than a ten foot long, cruised up and tentatively grabbed the outboard leg. This blue was the biggest I'd ever seen and both of us were 'oohing' and 'aaahing' as it grabbed fish from our hands. Man it was a magnificent creature and I cursed that I'd run out of film. This big blue was very hungry - unlike the others it never left the side of the boat and it just made a hog of itself.

Once, when it swam past and grabbed a koi from Ginge, I grabbed its pectoral and dorsal and practically lifted part of it from the water and it just sat there and did nothing for a number of seconds until I released it.  Blues are extremely agile and it was this mobility that almost cost Ginge his hand. Ginge was waving a koi in the slick waiting for a customer when I spied a mako on the other side. Ginge leaving his hand in the water, turned to look at the 100lb stranger. As he did so I saw out of the corner of my eye big blue approaching Ginge's baited hand I yelled, 'Look out!' just as the shark bit down. A second later and Ginge's hand may not have been there.

As darkness approached the sharks got bolder and bolder and numbers started to increase. How many there were was hard to ascertain for most of them were the same size but generally there were at least six or seven in view at one time and at least one mouthing and bumping the leg and boat. I had all our bait stuck in a rubbish bag and this was perched on the boat's side when big old bluey stuck his head out of the water and grabbed it, thereby tearing a big hole in the bag and releasing the remainder of our dwindling bait supply into the briny. These floated but they didn't get far at all before being demolished in that lazy blue way. That put an end to the hand feeding and with darkness practically upon us we somewhat reluctantly headed home.

To have had a better day would have been a hard call and both Ginge and myself couldn't wait to do it again.