Shark Trip

The weather forecast at the start of this week did not look promising. There were hurricanesque winds forecast for every single day along the Devon coast and I was sure that our shark trip would be called off. Friday, the day we were going was about the best but still too breezy for our skipper to risk taking us out. However as the week wore on the Friday forecast improved until it was obvious that it was going to be a break in the weather. My excitement kept building as I checked the forecast on an hourly basis.
In the end it was flat calm as we set off from Plymouth harbour on board Sea Angler2, just misty and drizzling, 'sticky rain' our skipper Malcolm calls it.
We got to the Mackerel fishing mark and for the first time in ages there were loads of them. Full strings all the time and it took no time at all for us to have plenty for bait and to make rubby-dubby.

A smelly mixture of mashed Mackerel, fish oil and bran, sharks love it!

 We then steamed out to the shark drift, 21 miles out to sea. It is fascinating how the skipper finds these places to fish because it all looks the same to me.
Dave and I drew straws for rods and thankfully only an hour in to the drift, mine was the first to take off. After about ten minutes I had the fish alongside but Malcolm let her run again because they are never beaten first time and if not played out they become a real handful on the boat. They are not a Great White but they have teeth to make a mess of human skin. I asked the skipper how many times he had heard 'we're gonna need a bigger boat' and he said 'every f'ing time'. I changed my mind about singing the theme tune. A couple of minutes later and we brought a 50lb Blue on to the boat.
She thrashed a bit but was good for the photo shoot.

As I went to put her over the side she bit through the rubby-dubby bag, and left it with a great big hole in it, a toothy reminder.
I then let Dave have use of all the rods and another hour later he landed his first ever Blue, slightly smaller at about 40lb. He then followed this up with a twenty pounder and I finished off with a 30. Four sharks on the boat was a good result and we went home happy, but still with an itch for a 'ton'!