THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Again it's very deep. And again there are some very big fish, but with a good head of smaller fish too,
and if you put down a set of baited features while waiting for the skate, there is also a very real chance
of a black mouthed dogfish.
I have to say though that when conditions are right, I still rate the Firth of Lorne and Sound of Mull,
both of which have a long historical track record of producing very big fish.
NOTE: Unfortunately, few photographs were taken on my double ton day, and none at all of my fish
due to the fact that we were filming the whole episode for a YouTube video.
Associated audio interview numbers: 14, 31, 45, 54, 90, 109, 112, 123, 124, 137, 141, 153, and 188.
A FISH IN EXCESS OF ONE THOUSAND POUNDS
Bucket List status – no result yet
Thousand pound fish, or granders as they are called in big fish circles, are rare. For obvious reasons,
the biggest examples regardless of weight for all fish species these days are now unfortunately on the
wane.
These are the individuals that for however long they've lived,
have managed to avoid becoming sick or diseased, dodged
predators in their many forms during the various phases of
their development and growth, and up to the point of
appearing on the end of someone's line, also previously
managed not to get caught, either by anglers or commercial
fishermen, all of which makes for one very fortunate fish.
Other factors will also have been at work too, such as a
genetic pre-disposition towards maximised potential growth.
On top of all this, and despite fish having a theoretical
capacity for indeterminate growth, only a handful of species
have the actual capacity to become granders, even if and
when all the odds are stacked in their favour.
A few friends and associates of mine have managed to
achieve this very significant milestone. Dave Lewis for
example is one who got lucky in the lottery of who takes
which strike during a marlin trip to Cape Verde, and came
away with a fish of eleven hundred and twenty pounds.
Pete Thorman, who I interviewed for the audio archives is
Dave Lewis 1120 pound Blue Marlin another. A man who has caught a number of four figure
great white sharks, including one well over two thousand
pounds. Even back then, getting the necessary permits to catch, tag, and release great whites was
difficult. These days it would be virtually impossible.
So what is there left to aim for. Well, when I was over in Mauritius, UK angler Leo Kennedy had a
grand plus mako shark on a live tuna slowly trolled for marlin. But like huge marlin these days, though
there are still a few grander pelagic sharks, including tigers, knocking about still, it's not to the extent
that they can be realistically deliberately targeted.
One shark exception, though little fished for is the greenland shark, which like the six gilled shark is a
sluggish, primitive, deep water species capable of some truly mind blowing dimensions.
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