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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Re: 765# LA Mako
Posted By: andre fourrier-Louisiana In Response To: 765# LA Mako *LINK* (Vic Roy)
Date: Thursday, 12 January 2006, at 8:50 p.m.
sharkbait Baton Rouge, LA USA
Monster Mako
a partial report may be in cyberspace, but I will try by starting over.Short form
Yesterday we caught an 11 foot 765 pound mako with Captain Kevin Beach of Reel Peace Charters. If the link on this site is up to date, the former state record was 412 pounds. It took me between 30-40 min. using stand-up gear to bring the fish boatside where Kevin engineered a successful capture. The fish was certified last night, and the rest of the crew and I now need some mako steak cooking tips. Wrap the whole fish in foil and place in oven will not work. I have used the name sharkbait ever since a blacktip took a hunk out my leg at Breton Island about 5 years ago. Thus, the concept of chewing some palatable shark meat is very appealing.
Long form
We drove from Baton Rouge and met Kevin at the Belle Pass Marina at 6:30 am yesterday and took a bumpy ride to the Lump in the Salty Duck. A pre-Katrina day would have started at my houseboat in Empire and boarding Pale Horse. Pale Horse will be back in service soon, but you can guess how many big pieces we found of the houseboat.
On the ride over, I lounged in a beanbag just underneath Kevin's shark rod. I noted that there was lots of steel leader and a hook configuration that Kevin may want to comment on later. When we arrived at the Lump, a new crew member reached for a beer and there was a brief discussion about the Hemingway rule. As senior crew member, I interpret the law as you should not drink while fishing until the first fish is caught, and does not apply to prefishing times. Thus, the lad Will was allowed to have his beer before we fished and it took about 5 min. for the first blackfin to be caught. I think this interpretation should get me a shot at the fisherman's supreme court. As a reminder, the sharks that were part of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea were Makos.
After catching a few blackfins, which only requires avoiding a pesky mackeral; we deployed a piece of one of the unlucky mackerals and hooked up with a nice yellowfin. We did not see the fish because it was overcast, but after 8 years of fishing once monthly with Reel Peace Charters, we should know what a YF bite and run looks like. We have a nucleus crew that has gone once a month since Peace and Matt were on the 22 foot Glacier Bay. As the YF took the initial run, I located the 2 harnesses and placed one around the angler, Rob. YF on the Lump fight differently than the deep stuff and the change is fun. This fish was about to spool Rob, so we prepared the boat to abandon anchor and chase, just one of the elements to fall in to place for the shot at Lizzie the Mako. With everything ready, Rob made some ground up on the YF. so the rest of us started catching BF and little bonito (another common name of the Mako shark) which puts another element in place. After about an hour of fighting the YF, Rob has the fish under the boat say 50 ft down doing the circle deal. My time on the rod is next, so I slipped on a fighting belt to safely start after another YF on the other side of the boat or help Rob out in case he needed it, element 3. Suddenly, Rob starts gaining on the fish at a rapid pace just winding up the last 50 ft as Lizzie brought the estimated 120-130 pounder to the surface and ripped off the tail of the tuna. Now that's a big teaser. We all screemed like little babies as Kevin calmly baited up a perfect size bonito, pitched it out, handed me the rod and said "Lane that's your fish".As Kevin and the crew gaffed the remainder of the YF and cleared the deck, I got the magic momment. She ate it, I stuck her, Rob was placeing the familiar harness around me, I went to the bow, she ran for the anchor line which magically the crew of Mike and Lance had managed to abandon in whatever seconds there were. I mean an 11 foot shark and we did every step right (how many times have we screwed up the simple stuff only to find an acorn of a mako). The Salty Duck is a 30 ft something Contender and a great boat for an angler in the bow. Place your knees against the cushioned side and get you some fish with all your body using the Braid harness. Reckon I'll get a free one for that plug? Anyhow, Hemingway is an angler hero of mine and he believed in taking charge of the fish, as do I. So for 30 or 40 minutes, I did not let up and on the second pass by the boat,Kevin made a magic stab and tail rope assisted by the crew mentioned above. It all just worked. This was the first Mako that I ever caught, but I do know that they are famous for deep runs and jumps as well as getting into boats after being hooked in a very pissy mood. My friend Lizzie never did any of that and died peacefully at the side of the Salty Duck. At that point the fun was over. It did not take a mind reader to know that Kevin had a few issues left. After going on a scavenger hunt on the Lump, we had a block and tackle and an extra flying gaff. I watched as 5 guys in pretty good shape tried to get the fish in the boat to no avail. I was taking care of an Advil and Coors Light deficiency. (In fact, I nominate Lizzie as the Coors Light 2006 poster girl.) Since I was the angler, I really did not have any quality time with the shark, that is, me and the rod and reel, which were teathered to to cleat, rather than me cleated someplace, were the stand by in case the recently captured Mako decided to break free and act like a Makomaniac. Therefore, I did not get an appreciation for her awesome size until we got her in the boat about 3 hours later. After parading Lizzie around the Lump, Kevin decided for plan B -- get some help at KMA wd 143. After getting no help from them we spent 2 hours (plan C) plowing along with Lizzie to the pilot station at the mouth of the River. Those guys were great and had Lizzie on the bow in a matter of minutes. As we gunned those 3 big 250's toward Fourchon, we waved politely to the staff of wd143 and promised to send them thank you cards in the future.Gunning 3 the big 250's was followed by plan D( 2 engines and running out of daylight). The guys at wd143 had not only turned their back on us they had all been out of the TV room taking pictures, while Justin made a report on the fish. By the time we got to the dock, the few people in the World who actually are reading this report already knew that there was a monster Mako coming to visit Fourchon. A fork lift was waiting to take her off the boat, and I am certain that the pictures would have been better at the Cypress Cove with the digital scale, etc. but living in the moment, we got her weighed. Her stomach was empty except for the tail of our tuna, and if she would have eaten the whole thing she would have been over twice the size of the previous record. I think the world record is over a grand, but for down here she was a hell of a catch thanks to all the elements being in place and I give 100% of the credit to Kevin Beach. I have to go cut up some fish and don't have time to proofread this report. So pardon any typos, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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