RECORD-BREAKING SHARKS
Bests of three species have been caught in British waters – one is the heaviest fish ever to a UK angler!
THREE record-breaking sharks have been caught in an incredible week for sea angling around the British coast.
The first colossal predator is believed to be the biggest fish ever landed by an angler in Great Britain and Ireland, and was estimated to weigh in excess of 1,300lb!
At 4.6 metres long, the rare six-gill shark was caught by Tony Carrig from Shannon, who was on board Luke Aston’s boat ‘Rahona’ out of Carrigaholt in County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland.
After an hour-long tug of war the elusive fish emerged from the depths and marks were made on the boat for measuring later.
“This is one of the largest sixgills we’ve ever had, and 1,300lb is a conservative estimate – it might well have been 1,400lb or 1,500lb,” said Luke.
“In 2009 one of our clients, Joe Waldis, took one back to port which was 3.9m long and weighed 1,056lb. This was the third six-gill we’d had in the last 10 days – sometimes we’ll go days or weeks without hooking one.”
Captors of a record thresher and blue were shark fishing for the first time. Somerset rod Nick Lane’s thresher, estimated to weigh 368lb, was caught aboard Dan Hawkins’ charter boat ‘Reel Deal’ out of Ilfracombe, Devon.
The previous record stood at 323lb and was caught in 1982.
Nick’s previous biggest fish is a 20lb blonde ray, and he told Angling Times that nothing could have prepared him for such a step-up in size: “The sound of the line screaming off the reel is one I will never forget,” he said.
“After the fight I was left shaking and barely able to move.”
The fish took a whole mackerel hookbait mounted on a size 10/0 and was measured by the crew at 90.75ins from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail.
Danny Fitch’s first-ever shark fishing trip also made history when he set the hook into the jaws of a blue shark estimated to have weighed 242lb off the Welsh coast.
The rare specimen was a male, and fell to the Norfolk rod while he fished with friend Dave Burtenshaw aboard record-
breaking skipper Andrew Alsop’s White Water out of Milford Haven.
It smashes the current Welsh record, standing at 222lb, which was also boated aboard Andrew’s vessel in 2010.
Danny’s shark was accurately measured on board to reveal a length of 110ins from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail and a girth of 42ins. “I was hung over the side of the boat, hanging on for dear life as the huge fish just made run after run,” Danny told Angling Times. “My biggest-ever sea fish up until this trip was a tope of around 40lb, so to catch a huge shark like this on my first-ever trip was like a dream come true.” The two anglers shared around 15 fish between them, with Danny boating other blue sharks to a best of 120lb. All these predators were caught on mackerel hookbaits fished in conjunction with a 380lb wire trace and a size 16/0 hook.
Video footage and pictures of the measuring of the 242lb blue shark have now been submitted in order to make an official claim for a Welsh record for the species.
All three sharks were returned.
“After the fight I was left shaking and barely able to move”