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 over it, and drift it again.

 

I had the area in mind which I thought may throw up some early season success, but with nothing having been caught so far, as far as I was aware, and with it being a month earlier than most people would be trying, it was still with hope, more than with expectation, of a possible bite.

My good friend Martin was also trying his luck, as we both headed in different directions with different ideas on what to try.

 Left: Island Sharking Grounds

 

I arrived at the area in question, and quickly got some feathers over the side and was fortunate enough to get a string of Mackerel, first drop – what a result!

Two rods were set up and set at different depths. Fresh Mackerel were the hook baits in question.

 

 

This year I had changed my terminal set-up considerably to what I had used before. Mostly to assist me with fishing alone, which had definitely hampered me the previous year, so now I had wire, wind-on leaders, plus I was using a braided mainline with a top-shot. All of which were sourced through Stewart Newell who had been so successful, locally in the past who had started up his new Business, British Big Game Fishing.

 

He’d also recommended his ever-faithful hooks, so was keen to give them a try, after again having issues and losing a few, the previous year.

I started off the drift at a lovely pace and was really happy with my drift line. It was exactly where I wanted to be going and cover some features that I thought may have been of interest.

Whilst covering the ground, I was keen to keep the Mackerel rod in the water and was picking up the odd fish, every so often coming to the feathers, so was keen to get as many as I could, for bait but also for the steady stream of Rubby-Dubby that I would be using. I had two 10 litre buckets on the go, with my 3kg frozen blocks, slowly melting away.

I was really pleased with the slick and the amount of oil that I had managed to infuse into the minced fish, along with some other items, so things couldn’t have been going any better.

Within a couple of hours, I had passed the features so fired up the engine and skirted out around my drift line in a big bow and then started off again on the same drift. The wind direction had changed slightly and sent me off on a slightly different line, but in the general area.

After a little while, I noticed the float starting to bob, so picked up the rod and frustratingly reeled in a small tope. Half an hour later, a repeat occurrence had me reeling in another Tope, smaller than the first, and I cursed that I had lost two precious Mackerel hook baits to the scavengers!

Again all too soon, I had made the finish point and went back for a third try, but with the tide ebbing at full speed I wasn’t expecting much joy – even the Mackerel had stopped feeding and my persistence, jigging the feathers was very much in vain, with nothing to be gained, whatever depth I tried.

I had to remember that it was still very early in the season and not to expect miracles. It was by any case a lovely day and the sun was shining, and even more importantly, I wasn’t at work!

It was later in the afternoon and the tide had dropped right off and still nothing had happened, so lined myself up for the first of the flood, hoping that this may make a difference.

I had spoken to Martin Throughout the day and he had drawn a blank and wasn’t going to give it much longer or at least until after tea-time, in order to get the drive back with the help of the tide.

Again, the flood drift drew little in the way of action. I was constantly looking. Shaking the chum, or had the Mackerel rod in my hand, eager to look for a sign, all to no avail.

Tea-time arrived and despondent, Martin had given up. He had not caught, nor seen anything so was calling it a day. I had an hour left, so said I was going to motor uptide for 30 minutes and have one more 30 minute drift over the area in question, so was a lot of effort, but was keen to keep to my plan for the day, so powered up ‘Esk’ and pushed the throttle down, into the tide for the final time of the day.

The wind had dropped off to nothing, it was a sheet of glass. The sun was high in the sky and it was stunningly beautiful summer conditions.

I dropped the 2 rods back and sailed the floats out and set about having a clean-up for the last 20 or so minutes. I emptied a pint of milk I had left over the side, then heard a ratchet, scream from my reel, in more in shock, than expectation as the rod bent over and a Thresher fully breached, a stone’s throw off the stern of the boat, as I screamed fish-on!

The Thresher powered off under a decent drag setting. It was all new, using braid which was much more responsive, having not as much stretch. I managed to clip my belt on, but didn’t clip in, just using the Butt-pad facility to add some extra pressure on the fish.

The boat looked like a bomb-site. I had buckets of chum on the gunwales, a spare shark rod that I managed to reel in with my other hand, plus the feathers swinging about in a rod holder, all whilst hanging on for dear life, as the denizen of the deep, done its best to put me through my paces.

 

 

3 times, I walked up to the bow and back down the starboard side of the boat as it circled me, on a relative long line, but as time went on I managed to bring it closer to the boat.

 

 

It kept shooting off on sporadic, spirited runs and on a couple of occasions, I screamed, as I thought I had dropped it, only to finally catch up with it, with their sudden turn of speed.

After 20 minutes, I finally got it near the boat. The water quality was exceptional and I looked down in awe as I could see the ghostly shadow of a Thresher twisting and turning under the pressure that I was applying on it.

I was then able to get it up in the upper layers and reeled the wind-on leader onto the reel and grabbed the reel with my welder’s glove. I went to put the rod into the holder, but before I could slot the butt into the hole, it was off and stripped 20 yards of line from the clutch. 

 The next time up, she was ready and came up vertically under the gunwale and laid there, beaten, and I gloved the leader, whilst placing the rod in the holder.

I was as always, taken aback by its beauty of these magnificent creatures, in complete awe.

With my marker numbers fixed to the side of the boat, just above the waterline, it was easy to get the length, of 5 1/2 ft. which using the NOAA chart equated to approx. 160lbs.

I fired up the engine and towed her along for a couple of minutes, before backing off the revs and it was just a case of taking a few shots on my phone, for posterity, then using the bolt cutters to snip the BBGF circle hook in half and watch in joy as she rolled backwards, and then with a flick of her tail, she was gone.

 The grin from my face was very evident as I pointed the bow for Bembridge and headed home. My masterplan had worked and it was only the start of a summer - one which I would never forget, in which everything came good, with multiple captures coming my way.

 

 Left: First Blood