This story headlined the Destin paper today.
Local News
Boats bring in mammoth mako shark
April 20, 2007
By Tina Harbuck(850) 654-8440Tina_Harbuck@link.freedom.comIt wasn’t the Orca fighting off Jaws. But with a 1,063-pound mako on the other end of a flying gaff, some of the anglers on board wondered if their little fishing boat could survive a fight with a monster shark.The crew aboard the Sea Ya Later II, a 26-foot center console boat, was cobia fishing Wednesday between Navarre and Pensacola when they spotted a huge mako shark. It was feeding on porpoise when they snatched it with a cobia jig.It wasn’t long after that Destin’s Capt. Jason Hallmark on the Mother Lode, a 45-foot charter boat that docks at the Destin Fishing Fleet Marina, moved into the area in search of cobia when he saw an angler on the front of the Sea Ya Later bowed up with something.Capt. Hallmark figured they had a good cobia on line.But then those aboard the Sea Ya Later II waved for him to come over.When Hallmark approached, what he saw was incredible.“It still had a porpoise in its mouth when I got there,” he said. “It looked like a dog with a bone in its mouth.”Hallmark said the mako was swimming on the surface, its fin in the air.“It don’t think it even knew it was hooked,” he said.After climbing onto the Sea Ya Later II with two flying gaffs, Hallmark managed to stick the mako in the gills. The shark swam right by the boat.“You can’t describe the color of purple it was in the water,” Hallmark said. “How clear and brilliant it was.”They tied the gaff to a leg of the smaller boat’s cobia tower and then Hallmark went for the gill.“I was nervous right before I gaffed him,” he said. “I remember thinking, do you really want to do this?”Holding the line of the gaff in his hands, he hooked the shark and tried to grip the line loosely to keep it from breaking off. All the while, the line slipping through his hands is ripping skin off several fingers.“The thought went through my head that we might need a bigger boat ... that was mentioned several times,” he said.“He was jerking the boat around and pulling it way over,” Hallmark said. “Everybody was running to the other side to keep it from tipping.”Then they got another gaff in the shark and finally it bled out.Between the three people on the Sea Ya Later II and the four on the Mother Lode, they got the shark to the boat. But it was 12-feet, 6-inches long — too much shark for the See Ya Later. Then they managed to hook a tail rope on the mako, and hooked it to a ratchet and inched it onto the Mother Lode.“It took an hour and 15 minutes to ratchet it onto the boat. It was exhausting,” Hallmark said.The two crews brought the mako to the scales at HarborWalk Marina in Destin. The mammoth mako broke the scales and pulley, but not before it registered at 875 pounds. Then they took it to the scales at the Destin Fishing Fleet Marina where it tilted the scales at 1,063 pounds and measured 72 inches around the girth.“That was the most exciting day of fishing I’ve ever had,” Hallmark said.“I’ve caught 600-pound blue marlin and 90-pound cobia ... but this was a man-eater, a giant. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Local News
Boats bring in mammoth mako shark
April 20, 2007
By Tina Harbuck(850) 654-8440Tina_Harbuck@link.freedom.comIt wasn’t the Orca fighting off Jaws. But with a 1,063-pound mako on the other end of a flying gaff, some of the anglers on board wondered if their little fishing boat could survive a fight with a monster shark.The crew aboard the Sea Ya Later II, a 26-foot center console boat, was cobia fishing Wednesday between Navarre and Pensacola when they spotted a huge mako shark. It was feeding on porpoise when they snatched it with a cobia jig.It wasn’t long after that Destin’s Capt. Jason Hallmark on the Mother Lode, a 45-foot charter boat that docks at the Destin Fishing Fleet Marina, moved into the area in search of cobia when he saw an angler on the front of the Sea Ya Later bowed up with something.Capt. Hallmark figured they had a good cobia on line.But then those aboard the Sea Ya Later II waved for him to come over.When Hallmark approached, what he saw was incredible.“It still had a porpoise in its mouth when I got there,” he said. “It looked like a dog with a bone in its mouth.”Hallmark said the mako was swimming on the surface, its fin in the air.“It don’t think it even knew it was hooked,” he said.After climbing onto the Sea Ya Later II with two flying gaffs, Hallmark managed to stick the mako in the gills. The shark swam right by the boat.“You can’t describe the color of purple it was in the water,” Hallmark said. “How clear and brilliant it was.”They tied the gaff to a leg of the smaller boat’s cobia tower and then Hallmark went for the gill.“I was nervous right before I gaffed him,” he said. “I remember thinking, do you really want to do this?”Holding the line of the gaff in his hands, he hooked the shark and tried to grip the line loosely to keep it from breaking off. All the while, the line slipping through his hands is ripping skin off several fingers.“The thought went through my head that we might need a bigger boat ... that was mentioned several times,” he said.“He was jerking the boat around and pulling it way over,” Hallmark said. “Everybody was running to the other side to keep it from tipping.”Then they got another gaff in the shark and finally it bled out.Between the three people on the Sea Ya Later II and the four on the Mother Lode, they got the shark to the boat. But it was 12-feet, 6-inches long — too much shark for the See Ya Later. Then they managed to hook a tail rope on the mako, and hooked it to a ratchet and inched it onto the Mother Lode.“It took an hour and 15 minutes to ratchet it onto the boat. It was exhausting,” Hallmark said.The two crews brought the mako to the scales at HarborWalk Marina in Destin. The mammoth mako broke the scales and pulley, but not before it registered at 875 pounds. Then they took it to the scales at the Destin Fishing Fleet Marina where it tilted the scales at 1,063 pounds and measured 72 inches around the girth.“That was the most exciting day of fishing I’ve ever had,” Hallmark said.“I’ve caught 600-pound blue marlin and 90-pound cobia ... but this was a man-eater, a giant. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
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