The 7 a.m. dry run on safety and gear seems a lifetime ago. This is game fishing and its quiet on the 24 feet twin-hull shark-cat, bobbing above the Continental Shelf off St Helens, on Tasmanias sparsely populated east coast.
We start winding in the lines. Suddenly one of them screams through the reel and all hell breaks loose.
A mako shark more than twice your size is on the other end. Hes so mad he tears a heap of line off the reel and leaps nearly 20 feet out of the water, flashing cobalt blue, before touching down for a two-hour battle.
Shift back in the game chair and brace your feet. This is going to take all but 40 metres of the kilometre-long line and every bit of the 24 kg breaking strain stretched between you and him.
Yesterday it was a 140 kg marlin and yellow-finned tuna up to 40 kg. Todays big daddy on the line will weigh in at 220 kg but right now youre glad you dont know. Its enough to feel the fight in him and at the end of the afternoon, savour the elation when your companions help wrestle him into the boat.
Maybe next time youll try a day of deep sea fishing in the temperate waters of one of the worlds finest saltwater fishing zones and settle instead for a manageable 10 kg striped trumpeter.
Reel Women Barra Classic 2003
What type of women would spend two days in a boat often not much larger than a bathtub, in a...
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1-27-2005
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