Can you imagine an 857-pound fish on the end of your line? How aboutone that can bite back?
My hat goes off to Bill Bennett of Timonium for wrestling an 857-pound mako shark into the charter boat Job Site earlier this month.
Last week, the Department of Natural Resources declared the sharka state record, surpassing the old mark by almost 100 pounds.
TheJob Site, by the way, fishes out of the Ocean City Fishing Center.
Normally, sharks are caught on live bait. But this monster took a trolled, handmade lure and jumped out of the water six times, with some leaps as high as 15 feet, before being boated. The shark almost filled the cockpit of the 53-foot charter boat. That's a lot of fish.
My wife, Cathy, and I took a fishermen's holiday last weekend and went to the Ocean City Fishing Center for a little tuna fishing. We arrived the first day of the Ocean City Tuna Tournament and watched big,beautiful, chunks of sushi being weighed-in.
The Liquidator, skippered by Capt. Bob Gower, had caught 27 yellowfin tuna and released 17. We were scheduled to fish with Bob the following day.
The following day was lousy. Low, gray clouds hung over the Ocean City inlet. A sharp 20-knot southeast wind produced 3- to 5-foot waves. Waves, the ocean fishermen say, have no back in them because they are short and choppy.
We boarded at 5:30 a.m., but it didn't look promising.
We ran out of the inlet, and it was nasty. After an hour, we were only about 15 miles off the beach. Bob said we still had another 50 miles to go if we wanted to catch anything, so we opted to try again Sunday.
Sunday dawned beautiful. The wind had backed around to the south, but it was manageable. There were still a few bumps left over from the day before, but we were able to run.
We headed for the area between Poorboy and Washington Canyon. The day was beautiful, but Saturday's storm had blown our fish away. We had one marlin bite, and he or she did not get hooked.
It was a lovely weekend -- even the fish enjoyed this one.
The Ocean City Fishing Center offers more than just offshore charter fishing. The new headboat, O.C. Princess, is bottom-fishing daily for sea bass and offers specialty trips, such as a 24-hour trip for shark and tuna.
For more information, contact the Ocean City Fishing Center at (301) 289-8121.
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ChesapeakeBay fishing is not all that bad. You have to pick and choose your spots and species, but there is a fair amount of action.
