30 Years a Sharker

  30 Years a Sharker – Spencer Wright. I suppose I am fortunate that I was born on the Isle of Wight and from as young as I can remember, have always been an angling fanatic, so sooner or later, was going to realise that my surroundings were a Shark angling hotspot! By the time I was a teenager, my family had our own boat, and also frequently attended days out on local charter boats, which how the shark bug dug deep. One of the boats and skippers who we used to regularly fish with, also happened to be a Shark fanatic, who went on to dedicate his life to chasing them, and quite rightly is openly known now as the most successful Thresher fisherman in the UK. At 13 my first trip out set the seed. Although I wasn’t allowed to fish on this Shark trip, my school friend actually hooked a thresher accidentally on his feathers, which took off at great speed and smashed him up with seconds – he wasn’t the only one who was hooked! I then spent a couple of my summer holidays crewing aboard a S...

  Early Season Success: by Spencer Wright. I cast off from my mooring early one June morning. I was alone on my boat, ‘Esk Lady’, a 31ft Mitchell, which had become my shark fortress for the previous year and I was keen to replicate and hopefully even surpass last year’s success.  The morning high-tide was still an hour away, but I was hoping to make inroads into my journey before the tide turned and would help push me along to my intended destination. It was beautiful early morning conditions, and once I was past ‘Ledge Buoy’ with the sun out and a light Force 2 wind evident and forecast to drop off as the day went on, I was hoping it was going to be a good day ahead.  Left: My Mitchell 31 – Esk Lady   In my mind, I wanted to do something a little different, and rather than the traditional long tidal drifts in both directions, which had been so successful for many, I wanted to concentrate on a specific area, and do little hour-long drifts, and drive back ov...