Renee’s love of the hunt
REEL-’EM-IN Renee Gardner is a stay-at-home mum who hunts sharks for thrills, so she loved every moment as this 2.8m monster dragged her tinnie for 10 minutes before she landed it.
Once she wins her woman versus fish contests, Ms Gardner kisses the beasts and lets them go.
For the 200kg-plus female bull shark she caught in the Logan River using a game fishing rod with an overhead reel, 80lb braid and a 650lb steel nylon trace rig and 18/0 circle hook, that was just as well. The shark was heavily pregnant.
“We were shocked, she was absolutely huge, mammoth, just a big beautiful girl, she was so calm when we got her up by the boat,” Ms Gardner said.
And all it took to make this impressive catch last Sunday was a humble half mullet bait.
“I think she was just exhausted because of the pups she was carrying, so she just went for something small,’’ she said.
Rather than catching the predators to kill them, rip out their jaws and hang them from scales, Ms Gardner said she does everything she can to protect the “beautiful” sharks.
“She was just a big peaceful beast,” said Ms Gardner, who posts her catches to her BnR Shark Fishing team social media channels.
“We try to do our best to protect them.
“I’ve caught sharks from 2m to 2.5m in the Broadwater before but nothing of this size.”
The 34-year-old former cleaner said she dedicated herself to catching monster sharks three years ago because her cleaning business didn’t excite her enough.
The mother of a nine-year- old girl said she kissed every shark she caught.
Ms Gardner targets big sharks at least twice a week with fishing partner Bradley Alderson and tags as many as she can as part of a NSW Department of Primary Industries game fish tagging program. Queensland has no similar program.
She said she had always had a passion for fishing, catching “nicer fish” like snapper and sweetlip emperor.
That was until she caught her first shark pup about three years ago and became determined to haul in larger sharks like her catch on Sunday, which was a personal best.
“It’s a real eye-opener that there’s fish like that coming through our waterways.’’
She said sharks across the Gold Coast had come on to the bite in the past week.
“(Bull sharks) are so thick in the water, at this time of year with the summer heat they’re everywhere,” Ms Gardner said.
She said her regular fishing spots were locations frequented by swimmers.
“We fish the Broadwater, the Seaway and around Wavebreak Island, you find heaps of juvenile sharks around the island,” she said.