OTW Sales Rep Anthony “Cheech” DeiCicchi got into a crazy blue dog bite south of Martha’s Vineyard over the weekend and wrote it up for FOTJ. – JTF
Last weekend, I had the chance to hop aboard Mike Pierdinock’s Perseverance to ply the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard for some sharks. Prior to the trip, I did a little research hoping to find some water and conditions that would be likely to hold makos or, better yet, threshers. I logged on to Rutgers Coolroom to take a peek at some sea surface temperatures, and found a nice break over some structure known to hold mako and thresher sharks when the right temperatures were present. I found a 7 to 8 degree break approximately 42 miles from Falmouth Harbor, and it seemed like we’d be able to set up for a nice drift over the structure.
Captain Mike ran his boat from Green Harbor in Marshfield and docked at Falmouth Harbor for the night. We jumped on the 30-foot Pursuit Offshore and pushed off at 5:00 a.m., making our way through Muskeget Channel toward the sharking grounds with high hopes for finding makos and threshers.
As we approached the structure the temperature slowly crept up from 57 degrees to that 65-degree water we were looking for. This was a relief since the fog and cloud cover prevented any readings from the Furuno Navnet system equipped with Sirius SST overlay. We started our chum slick with freshly ground bluefish, baited the shark rigs with blue fish fillets, and deployed one of the live harbor pollock Capt. Mike procured the day before. Positioning the bridled live bait farthest away, we then set a bluefish fillet about twenty feet down. Next, we dropped a weighted bluefish fillet 55 feet down under a balloon, just above the thermocline, and set that about 30 yards from the transom. The last bait, a flat line, was dropped down just below the thermocline at 65 feet, right off of the transom. As the chum slick materialized, and our starting point was marked on the GPS, the wait was on.
Within minutes we had our first customer of the day take a shallow-set bluefish fillet fished on one of the Local Hooker Acid Wrapped rods we were using. These rods entirely take the torque out of the reel seat, preventing the reel to want to naturally turn over. In about 15 minutes we had a quality 6-foot blue shark to the boat. We tagged the shark, cut the leader, and reset the bait. Before getting the bait all the way to its position, we were on again. While fighting that fish, another rod went off. Doubled up! We made quick work of these two “blue dogs.”
At times, we had three or four sharks on at once, with free swimming blue sharks all around us. It was mayhem! We had so much action we started to experiment with lighter and lighter tackle. Hooking up on a 30-pound-class rod with an Okuma Cedros made for a fun challenge with one 250-pound shark.
Although the mako and thresher sharks did not make an appearance, the action was non-stop throughout the day! We counted more than 30 blue sharks caught and released, some easily over 300 pounds!
Toward the end of the drift, I grabbed a 30 to 50-pound class spinning rod with a Penn 950 loaded with 80-pound-test braid, clipped on a shark rig and cast it into the slick. I hooked up and broke off a nice shark as I was palming the reel to turn the fish. I quickly re-rigged and came back for round two. Quickly hooking up again, I fought the fish for about 30 minutes. Again, palming the reel to stop the fish and turn it when necessary. The fish took me all around the boat a few times, and I finally had it moving toward us while I was fighting it from the bow.
As I got the fish directly below me, it was time to see what this Local Hooker spinning rod was made of. Palming the reel and pumping the fish closer and closer, I almost had the tip of the rod below the butt of the rod! Very impressive! We got the fish to the boat, leadered it, tagged it, and sent it on its way. What a day! If we only had a fly rod on board it would have made the day complete, aside from a the obvious goal of boating a mako or thresher shark.
For one last shot at one of these tasty sharks, we rigged up some trolling baits with shell squid tipped with the last of the fresh bluefish to troll our slick on the way home. We set out at about 8 knots, zig-zagging back along the waypoints we marked along our drift. Deploying two trolling rigs just past the second wake, we hoped for a mako to come bombing out of the deep, taking our offering to the air. I set out a bluefish rack and skipped it along the prop wash about 30 yards back and hoped for one last thrill. When we reached the end of the slick we knew it was time to head home, tired arms and all. We got some great video footage and plenty of great photos. All in all, we’d had our fill of screaming drags bent rods and great weather. Get out and try your hand at some sharking! You just never know what will make its way into your slick…..
Cheech, Nice write-up! Just want to let people know the 30# spinning rod was a 30-50# e-glass blank (Toughstick) named accordingly! This was NOT a graphite rod and only guys like you (experienced fishermen) should attempt to fight a shark on light tackle! Next thing we’ll be seeing is Bobby Rice, Jack Sprengel, Kevin Malone, Russ Zawaduk, Philthy Lou and Mike Pierdinock out sharking on spinning gear… If you told me that was what you were going to do with the rod, I’d have told you you were a little too “BENT”!
GET BENT soon,
Bob.
Bob, you’re giving me far too much credit. Haha….thanks for the clarification though, there’s no such thing as “too bent” unless its followed by a loud explosion, and that didn’t happen which is a testament to that blank, not the angler. Keep up the good work, glad you like the re-cap of a great day on the water.
[…] more important factor than physiological stress associated with the fight. He has done research on blue sharks that found that most gut-hooked fish had massive infections and were emaciated. Thus, avoiding […]