Pete Thomas Outdoors

Tiger shark closes in on kayak, angler reacts accordingly

By Pete Thomas

Devin Kanda was fortunate to have been facing the right direction when a large tiger shark surfaced as his feet dangled from his kayak recently off Oahu.

As Hawaii News Now states in the video report posted below, Kanda had just caught an 18-pound ono off Diamond Head when he spotted the approaching shark, enabling a quick response.

“I caught it in my peripheral [vision] … and I looked up,” he said. “And just in time I pulled my leg before it could take a bite of my foot.”

Kanda’s video camera was operating during the July 4 encounter. His footage was picked up by Hawaii-based media outlets over the weekend.

The shark was likely attracted by the scent of fish. Kanda said he was more in awe of the large shark than afraid, but thankful that he wasn’t attacked.

–Image courtesy of Devin Kanda

Angler pets mako shark as casually as one might pet a dog (video)

By Pete Thomas

Keith Poe spends much of his time offshore, trying to lure large sharks close enough to bait and tag for science.

What does the Southern California fisherman do with smaller sharks attracted by his chumming technique?

The accompanying footage shows Poe gently pulling a free-swimming mako shark by its dorsal fin and stroking its back as casually as one might stroke the back of a family pet.

“Come on, girl. Come here,” Poe says, reaching toward the 6-foot shark. “We’re gonna get you some pets. Come on, come on. Yeah, get you some pets.”

It’s a definite don’t-try-this-at-home moment, not advisable for anyone without vast experience in working with sharks.

Poe, who tags sharks for the Marine Conservation Science Institute, has caught an estimated 5,000 sharks and understands their behavior as well as anyone.

He said he was chumming in the San Pedro Channel off Los Angeles when the small mako shark appeared.

“She was just hanging out,” he said. “I was hand-feeding her and petting her for several hours while waiting for an adult shark to show up. I never [bait] them unless they’re mature females 9 feet and up.”

He said the shark was never aggressive, and that he shared the video because mako sharks “are always thought of as such vicious animals, and it’s just not true.

“They come up to the boat all excited ready to kill something because that's necessary to eat usually.
But after a while they calm down and you get to know their real personality.”

One of the largest mako sharks Poe has tagged is named Cinderella. Her movements can now be tracked via the MCSI’s Expedition White Shark app.

“When I tagged Cinderella, an 11-foot, 4-inch mako, I spent a long time with her, feeding her before I caught her,” Poe said. “It’s part of an effort to reduce capture shock.

“As a result, after I caught her, and tagged and released her, she stayed at the boat for an hour-and-a-half eating out of my hand.”

Poe, who recently had an 18- to 20-foot great white shark “hang out with me for five hours,” said he typically sends most of the sharks he tags to freedom with a stroke or pat to the head or back.

Call it a perk.

Man goes ice fishing with pitchfork, two pet sheep, and becomes Internet sensation

By Pete Thomas

Video showing a man ice fishing in Kazakhstan, exhibiting a style of catching that’d be illegal in the U.S., has gone viral on social media, perhaps because of its simplistic nature.

 

Зимняя рыбалка говоришь? Да что ты знаешь о ней?)) pic.twitter.com/BI2G5FY3mG

— Габит Рахимберлин (@Starshina73) January 12, 2020

The footage, shared Sunday by Twitter user Gabit Rahimberlin, has been viewed more than 7 million times.

The unidentified fisherman, accompanied by two white sheep, is the picture of confidence as he chops a hole in the ice, baits the water with pellets, and hurls his pitchfork through the hole to impale four hefty fish, one after the other.

The rest is a display of efficiency: The fish are quickly cleaned and hauled over the man’s shoulder, on the prongs of his pitchfork, back to the homestead. In his yard the fish are carefully seasoned, butterflied with twigs, and cooked over an open fire.

All in a day’s work, the fisherman gestures at the end, with two thumbs up and a broad smile.

–Image is a video screen grab

 

365-pound yellowfin tuna landed off Cabo San Lucas

By Pete Thomas

After hooking two giant yellowfin tuna and losing both – one after a 4-hour fight – a group of anglers out of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, boated the catch of a lifetime.

Steve Hammerschmidt of Huntington Beach landed the 365-pound ‘super cow’ after a marathon struggle last Tuesday in the Pacific, 30 miles north of the resort city on Baja California’s tip.

Veteran anglers often refer to yellowfin tuna topping 200 pounds as “cows.” Tuna topping 300 pounds are “super cows,” and catches of these giants are quite rare.

However, even larger yellowfin tuna exist within their range in the eastern Pacific. The world record yellowfin – caught south of Cabo San Lucas in 2012 – stands at 427 pounds.

Hammerschmidt was fishing aboard Castigo with owner Larry Jacinto, Capt. Sean Sadler, and mate Adam Cargill.

According to Rebecca Ehrenberg of Pisces Sportfishing, which posted about the catch on Facebook, the anglers had received information about the presence of large tuna from the crew of the San Diego-based Red Rooster III.

After arriving at the spot, they hooked a tuna estimated to weigh 380 pounds and lost that fish after 4-1/2 hours, in the darkness, just 15 feet from the boat.

Cargill told Ehrenberg: “We were devastated after we lost this fish, but we were ready to get  right back on it first thing in the morning. The next day I rigged the line with a natural flying fish I had, and immediately had an explosion on it. Again, huge fish, but we missed it.”

Cargill then baited a line with a fresh sardine, handed the rod to Hammerschmidt, and the hookup was nearly instantaneous.  After 2 1/2  hours the fish was safely on board and the veteran anglers celebrated their largest catch to date.

The tuna measured 84 inches and had a girth of 59 inches, leaving the group with enough fresh ahi to feed a small community.

–Images are courtesy of Sean Sadler via Pisces Sportfishing

Baja anglers 'rescue' mysterious oarfish found in shallows

By Pete Thomas

Two brothers on a fishing trip this week in Mexico discovered a live oarfish struggling in the shallows and helped revive the mysterious creature.

Noah and Jacob Thompson, from Texas, found the juvenile oarfish near La Capilla in Baja California’s East Cape region.

They carried the serpent-like fish to deeper water and watched it swim away, according to John Ireland, owner of Rancho Leonero Resort.

Oarfish, deep-water denizens that can measure 30-plus feet, occasionally wash ashore dead or near-death on Sea of Cortez beaches. Encounters, however, are extremely rare.

Ireland told Pete Thomas Outdoors that he had not previously heard of a successful “rescue and release” of a stranded oarfish.

Rancho Leonero on Thursday posted a photo to Facebook showing one of the Thompsons posing with the oarfish. Ireland described the encounter as “amazing” and remarked how healthy the fish appeared to be. “I’ve never seen one that small or in that good of shape,” he said.

In 2012, a 15-foot oarfish washed ashore in Cabo San Lucas at Baja California’s tip. An effort to revive the fish was unsuccessful.

Oarfish, because of their size and bizarre appearance, are believed to have spawned sea monster myths in the times of ancient mariners.

–Image showing Jacob Thompson with the oarfish is courtesy of Rancho Leonero Resort

 

 

Angler who killed great white shark on Oceanside Pier sentenced

By Pete Thomas

An angler who caught and killed a great white shark Jan. 5 on Oceanside Pier was sentenced Friday to three years probation and fined $250.

Bodi Dee Roberts, 21, also was banned from the popular fishing pier in north San Diego County.

Roberts caught the juvenile shark from the pier and was confronted by angry bystanders as he left with the carcass, according to 10 News San Diego.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers eventually confronted Roberts and seized the shark.

Great white sharks are protected by state and federal regulations off California. According to the CDFW, “It is illegal to catch, pursue, hunt, capture or kill a white shark, which includes intentionally attracting white sharks with bait or other methods.”

According to the Tracking Sharks blog, a witness said the 6-foot shark was initially identified by Roberts as a mako shark, and that it was gaffed and pulled onto the pier by several people. Catching mako sharks is legal.

Roberts was charged with one misdemeanor count of the unlawful catch of a protected species. He could have been fined up to $1,000.

According to 10 News San Diego, Roberts had also faced misdemeanor counts of unlawful possession of game, deterioration and waste of a fish, and destroying or concealing documentary evidence.

Roberts is allowed to continue fishing elsewhere, as long as he stays within the law.

–Juvenile white shark image credit: ©Pete Thomas 

814-pound blue marlin landed off Cabo San Lucas after epic struggle

By Pete Thomas

A group of anglers on Sunday reeled in one of the largest blue marlin ever caught off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, after a 6-hour struggle that continued long after the billfish had been subdued.

Four hours into a fight that sapped the strength of four novice fishermen who had already battled several large tuna, the 814-pound marlin perished.

Tiburon deckhand Salvador “Chava” Flores spent the next two hours reeling the behemoth to the surface. (The anglers had hoped to release the fish alive.)

Their new dilemma was that the marlin, which had struck a trolled ballyhoo and a large green lure late in the afternoon, was nearly 14 feet long and more than 5 feet around.

The Tiburon, run by Pisces Sportfishing, is designed for smaller game and does not have a transom door through which to slide enormous billfish. The marlin was too massive to be tied to the transom outside the cockpit, and the weary anglers and crew were not strong enough to haul the fish over the rail.

Capt. Rosendo Gomez telephoned for assistance, and another 31-foot vessel arrived with four crewmen.

Pisces stated in a news release: “Even with all this manpower of four anglers and four additional crew it was impossible to hoist the monster fish, that had grown in estimation every hour, into the boat.”

Fortunately, a much larger Pisces yacht was nearby and arrived to save the day. The marlin was collected through its transom door and delivered to the weigh station in the Cabo San Lucas Marina.

At 814 pounds, according to Pisces General Manager Tracy Ehrenberg, it became “the largest fish we’ve seen in many years in Cabo.”

The largest on record, Ehrenberg said, was a 1,070-pound marlin caught 26 years ago – also in April.

The anglers, visitors from California who had spent 12 grueling hours at sea, seemed in the mood to celebrate.

Mark Molnar thanked Ehrenberg for the Tiburon crew’s persistence, saying, “The crew stopped at nothing to achieve the objective and we will never forget that.”

Curtis Paul added that it was a day of firsts: “The first time we have hooked one fish on two lines. The first time we have had seven tuna on at one time. The first time reinforcements were sent, and the first time we caught an 814-pound fish.”

Typical blue marlin season in Cabo San Lucas waters is late summer and fall.

–Images are courtesy of Pisces Sportfishing

Missouri angler shatters brown trout record, 'I'm still in shock'

By Pete Thomas

The catch Saturday of a 34-pound, 10-ounce brown trout has shattered the Missouri state record for the species.

Paul Crews of Neosho was participating in a tournament on Lake Taneycomo and said he “fought the fish from one side of the lake to the other and back” during a 20-minute struggle.

“I’m still in shock that I actually caught that giant brown trout,” Crews told the Missouri Department of Conservation.

The MDC confirmed the catch as a “pole-and-line” record on Monday, saying it beat the previous record by more than six pounds.

The trout was released back into the lake after being weighed on a certified scale.

Crews, who used 4-pound-test line and a sculpin-pattern jig, said he usually fishes only once a year – during the Vince Elfrink Memorial Trout Tournament.

He and partner Jim Rayfield Sr. were fishing from a boat when the massive trout struck and began dragging them across the lake.

“Once the fish was in the boat I just knew my partner and I had won the tournament,” Crews said. “But I was shocked to hear I was a state record holder.”

For the sake of comparison, the International Game Fish Assn. lists as the world record a 42-pound, 1-ounce brown trout caught in New Zealand in 2013.

–Image showing Paul Crews (middle) and his record catch is courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation

Enormous great white shark feeds on whale carcass off San Clemente; video

By Pete Thomas 

Fishing became secondary for a group of Southern California anglers Thursday after they encountered a massive great white shark feeding on a gray whale carcass.

The accompanying footage, captured near the San Clemente Pier, shows the scarred predator swimming just off the stern of the 23-foot fishing boat, and moments later sinking its teeth into the whale.

 (It’s not known how the whale died, but whale carcasses often attract sharks.)

The anglers were part of an AllWater Charters expedition out of Dana Point. Allwater posted the video on Instagram and Marc Levine, the company’s owner, shared the footage on Facebook. The shark was estimated to have measured 17 to 19 feet, according to the Orange County Register.

“So awesome and crazy to see a massive great white like this around here,” Marc Girardeau, an Orange County photographer, wrote in the Facebook comments section.

A red lifeguard boat also appears in the footage. Lifeguards planned to tow the whale carcass farther offshore, so it does not wash onto the beach.

The encounter occurred less than a mile from shore. By towing the carcass out to sea, it was hoped that the shark would be drawn farther from swimmers and surfers along the coast.

–Images showing the great white shark near the boat and feeding on the whale carcass are video screen grabs

1,000-pound tiger shark caught by same captain twice in five years–what are the odds?

By Pete Thomas

Five years ago, Chip Michalove and his angling clients reeled in a tiger shark that measured 12-plus feet and weighed an estimated 1,000 pounds.

On Tuesday, the Outcast Sport Fishing captain caught and released the same shark in the same area off Hilton Head, S.C., despite improbable odds of this ever happening.

In fact, this is at least the third time the same tiger shark has been caught.

In 2013, Michalove attached a small tag to the shark. Last year, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources attached a larger satellite tag to the same shark. (Second image shows dorsal fin damage likely caused by the satellite tag.)

On Tuesday, after a 45-minute fight one mile off Hilton Head, as Michalove maneuvered the boat and three clients took turns at the rod and reel, they had the shark alongside the boat.

“It was like hooking a tug boat,” Michalove told USA Today, explaining that the shark went where it wanted for most of the fight, as he pursued with the boat. “A tiger shark this size pulls like a dump truck.”

Tiger sharks, named because of faint vertical stripes on their bodies, are found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. They can measure 15-plus feet and weigh more than 1,700 pounds. (The International Game Fish Assn. lists a 1,785-pound tiger shark caught off Australia in 2004 as the all-tackle world record.)

Michalove said his clients, a father and two teenage sons, had asked for a challenge before setting out, “and it took everything they had to land that shark.”

–Images of 1,000-pound tiger shark are courtesy of Chip Michalove/Outcast Sport Fishing