THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

This was how most of the tuna were caught from dusk on
into the dark. Kev had a tuna of around 220 pounds doing
this with his fixed spool lure popping outfit, which took him
2 hours and 40 minutes to beat. But typically the tuna would
range between around 40 to 70 pounds apiece, which while
this doesn't sound much, can still be a handful to beat, even
on the much heavier gear Kimbo provides.
On a few occasions however, the same chum also drew in
less welcome predators, as indeed would hooked tuna
struggling on the hook sending out stressed messages,
leading to them occasionally coming back bitten off just
behind the head.
Obviously this was the work of sharks. But not just any
sharks. So far as we could ascertain it would always be by
galapagos sharks in the 200 to 500 pound category. It's
worth noting that at the time, the world record for the
species stood at 308 pounds 10 ounces.
One particular day we got Two Boats store owner Andrew
Ellick, known locally as 'BBC,' to take us out in his
converted ships life boat 'Lady Shy' for a mid week daytime
trip while Kimbo was at work, and in no time at all we were
surrounded by huge galapagos sharks.
Phill Williams, 90 pound Wahoo
So brazen were they that Graeme even managed to dart tag a couple as they swarm around the boat, one
of which was a good 600 pounds. We also kept hooking them on small chunks of bait intended for the
tuna. I had one on for well over an hour before it bit through the heavy mono trace, while a combination
of Dave, Graeme and BBC actually got a big one to the boat and tagged before it too bit through.
As mentioned earlier, my sole objective was to tick off the missing 'grander' from my bucket list, and
with that in mind, we booked a couple of evening trips spent fishing after dark at anchor aboard the 36
foot marlin boat 'Harmattan'.
While it was still light, the shark gear stayed in the boat. Instead we chunked for tuna for fresh bait
which were not slow in coming. Then as darkness fell, the 130 pound class outfit was brought out and
rigged up with a long heavy wire trace to beat the teeth and abrasive skin, with the addition of a large
lump of rock on a piece of lighter line tied to the hook, the idea being that when a shark took the bait,
the lump of rock holding it down would be bitten free, leaving just the fish on the end of the line.
We did eventually get a big six gill during the second session caught by Kev, which because it was
estimated at a 'mere' 800 pounds didn't bother me that I'd missed out. In fact, I was quite happy that it
wasn't my fish.
Having already previously caught them to 900 pounds, what I didn't want was all that laborious hard
slogging dead weight effort, only to be disappointed at not having a 'grander' as compensation. So not
as much six gill activity as we had hoped for. But not necessarily because of any poor showing on the
part of the sharks. Other un-anticipated factors were to a large extent responsible.
Pretty much as soon as the big tuna slab went down after dark on both trips, fish other than six gills
were biting and tugging at it on the bottom. These we were told were oil fish, a species of so-called
snake mackerel I had previously only seen in photographs of people posing with specimens which
looked to be between maybe 10 and 20 pounds.
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