Author Topic: LBI Weekend Report-Thresher Shark (Read 4428 times)

Captain Dave Wittenborn · « **on:** June 22, 2008, 06:59:12 PM »

Thresher Shark!

The weather was kind to us this weekend and so was the fishing. The catch of the weekend was a 24" 5.02lb fluke which was caught on the Garden State South Reef. We thought we were snagged on the bottom until it started tugging back. I would not say that the catching was easy, however, if you put time in you were most likely rewarded.

I saw an amazing occurrence this weekend. We were snagging bunker off Brant Beach in search of some trophy striped bass when out of the corner of my eye I saw several gulls on top of the water behaving abnormally. I decided to move the boat a little closer to have a look when I saw a large mass of bunker piling on top of one another in an odd fashion. They were not splashing around as they normally do, just climbing on top of one another trying to obviously get away from something underneath. I thought it was my lucky day and went to reach for my rod with the weighted treble hook. Just then, about twenty bunker came shooting out of the water and were followed by a huge Thresher Shark. It slapped it's tail on top of the water a couple of times and slowly vanished beneath the surface. It was frightening and amazing at the same time to see this predator so close up but what was even more frightening was that it occurred only a couple of hundred yards off the beach. Swimmers beware!

IrishAyes · « **Reply #1 on:** June 22, 2008, 07:03:15 PM »

Nice report Captain Dave.

We saw that last year several times. Awesome sight. Even hooked into two of them while fluke fishing. Of course, we didn't land either one.

Nice catch on the 5# fluke.