Threshers Heavy tackle and high Mortality rates a Non professional's veiw... -- Archive

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Subject: Threshers Heavy tackle and high Mortality rates a Non professional's veiw...

Author:
ED

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Date Posted: 927502625PDT

Posted by Jim Day on May 05, 1999 at Sharktagger 18:13:21:

First of all I should say that we're not all going to agree on this, but I think there is room for discussion.
What started all this was a series of posts at Allcoast in which a group of thresher guys posted that 90% of the threshers caught are tail hooked an almost drowned. Since I've caught threshers and have never tailhooked anything. I posted that I thought this was a myth. That sharks feed with their mouths like every thing else and if they were hooking all their sharks in the tail they were doing something wrong. After a lot of posts this is what I've come up with.
The guys who are doing all the foulhooking are following Fred Archers methods, for those who don't know Archer: Hee'ss kind of a local southern California Shark Guru. He advocates a heavy tackle get the meat on the boat quick type mentality. Heavy line heavy drags, huge wind on leaders. He evan says you should keep your rod in the rod holder,and winch those baby's up with your big two speed. Though there is some good information in the books, the approach to me is just not very sporting. I catch fish because I like fighting them with the rod in my hands. I have no doubt the methods work, for that matter so does longlining. I just prefer a little sport in my sport. Fred advocates as I said very high drag settings, something like 35 lbs. with hundred pound dacron. He says this is important to set the hook. Once again I'm sure it works, perhaps too well. Threshers often attack baits with their tail. They hit it, stun it, then pick it up and eat it. What I think is happening is this: when the sharks attempt to stun the bait they hook themselves in the tail that simple. This is due to the heavy drag coupled with the lack of stretch in the dacron. I've seen thresher tails there's nothing soft or wimpy about them. it takes a lot of force to drive a hook into them and that force is supplied with the heavy drag settings these guys are using. It's just that simple. Archer evens states in his book that this is a good method to catch Threshers and suggests setting the release clips at there highest settings to encourage this kind of hookup. Like I said I had never considerd this to be a problem untill I read these guys posts. The light tackle methods I use just simply have not produced any tail hooked threshers. Some of the guys such as Dave below say that the heavy gear produces shorter fighting times which improves the sharks chances of survival, I greatly respect Dave and agree with this to an extant. Sharks are not Marlin or Tuna, I personally think their a lot tougher. On our boat last fall we played with a big 9Ft blue for sevaral hours repeatedly baiting fighting and releasing him on 20lb though the combined fighting time was over several hours he was still circling the boat when we left with no ill effects. I do know that towwing a shark backwards is one of the shurest ways to kill it. Ulike most fish their gills have no pumping action if their not moving foreward their not getting air, under the stress of a fight this has to be deadly. So thats my opinion. Sharkers have become more concervation oriented in the last few years, maybe it's time to re-avaluate some of our methods. I would agree that shorter fighting times are better, but any method that foul hooks 90% of the sharks and drags them to the boat backwards is not a viable method for tag and release.

Sorry if I ruffle a few feathers.

Tight lines Jim

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