Rare are the days I feel comfortable going offshore in the winter but upon awakening one recent morning the weather man had called it right. Light winds less than 10 knots and with that I called and woke a friend at 6:30am and asked if he wanted to go fishing. The next hour was a rush to prepare the boat, fuel up, gear up and run to the bait shop. By 8:30am we left the dock with 200 shrimp, boxes of chum and high hopes of tangling with mangrove snappers, flounder, mackeral and perhaps a kingfish on the high seas.
As we made way through Boca Grande Pass the seas were bumpier than expected and as we began a fifteen mile ride to what is known as the “schoolbus” reef. On the way we watched an occasional blow up with sizable silver fish blasting bait but could never line up with the fish as they were on the move. My guess was kingfish or perhaps a bonito as they were aggressive blasts on the surface. By the time we landed on the reef it had gotten quite bumpy as we watched the bottom machine for a sizeable object to show and when it did we threw a buoy marker on the spot moved forward from it and drifted back under anchor with a perfect set up to drift chum back to the reef. Chum box in the water spewing out fish pieces and beautiful shrimp dropped to the bottom however we never got a peck after giving the spot a couple of hours.
Heading to our next favorite reef we hoped for a better reward. Same scenario- circle the bottom structure while watching the depth finder, dropping the buoy and anchoring to position the stern within casting distance to the reef and dropping the chum box over. This time we had bites on every cast. Blue Runners led the list of fish species, along with grunts and one nice flounder. Still not what we were fishing for but action was fast and fun. Knowing an occasional kingfish might show itself we kept a few blue runners in the well. Rigging one on a short piece of piano wire and 4’ of 50 pound leader I cast a live runner out behind the boat and watched it pull a float erratically in circles as it tried to free the circle hook impaled in its back. The medium action rod was placed in a rocket launcher over head so as not to interfere with our bottom fishing.
As we continued to probe the depths we were successful at feeding small fish lots of nice shrimp and then the blue runner rod buckled with a loud thud and line began stripping off at an alarming rate. Scrambling to get the rod I was balancing myself on the gunnel and hanging on with one hand and trying to remove the rod from the holder with no success. Too much pressure on the reel handle until the fish paused and I got the rod out. Immediately I felt the fish swing its body against the line and it raced off with another 100 yards of line nearly breaking surface the whole way. Monster kingfish was my mantra as we watched all heck break loose on the surface. I was totally under-gunned for this fight as my medium action rod buckled in unnatural ways with rod tip nearly touching the handle! Finally within 70 yards of the boat a 6 foot fish free-jumped and with glare on the water we seen a brownish red color not silver. It was a shark and I had brought a knife to a gunfight as my saltwater buggy whip was doing a good job of wearing me down but not the fish. Add to that I had a 4/0 Owner Muthu Light Circle Hook and I figured the hook would break before the line, but it didn’t.
At boat side this remarkable fish revealed itself to be a blacktip shark over 100 pounds and Mark seen visions of steakfish on the grill so out comes the gaff and in comes the shark. Believe me when I tell you that when a blacktip shark of this size is pulled into the boat it creates excitement and danger.
Sharks are a common catch on offshore reefs this time of year and will certainly satisfy your desire to fight big fish. I can tell you that the fight of this shark rivaled many battles I had this year with 100 pound tarpon!
