The one that got away

The following is a big fish story.

In this case, it is TRUE though. I swear. Scouts honor.

I took a fishing tour in Darwin today, for a half day from 10 am to 2 pm. I made my way down to the harbor in the morning and boarded the small fishing boat. It had only 2 crew and 7 passengers, so we had a decent amount of room to move around.

We moved around a fair bit at the start, and right off the hop, an older guy on board snagged a fish, and while pulling it up, he got an even harder tug on his line and wrestled to get it up the rest of the way. When we got the fish up, there was a large Barracuda on the end of the line about 5 feet long. Turns out that inside the Barracuda's mouth was the fish the guy had originally caught, and the 'Cuda had grabbed it on the way up, hooking itself in the process. They initially tossed the Barracuda back, but it died anyway, so we chopped it up and used it as bait.

That, however, is not my big fish story, even though it was interesting.

As I kept on fishing, I finally got a bite, and hauled up a small orange fish, about 7 inches long. I was gong to toss it back, when the girl on the crew, Kara, came over and asked if I wanted to use it as live bait. The though never occurred to me, but why not I guess? Big fish eat small fish, right? So, I hooked it through the tail, and plunked it back in the water. Kara advised to check it every now and again, and if it died, to just toss it.

I waited a bit, nothing, nothing. Hauled it back up, yep, still alive. Sent it back down. Nothing happening again, so I started looking around.....and Wham-o! My fishing rod almost went flying right out of my hands. I pulled back on it, and the rod was bent near in half. The other person on the crew, a guy, came over and I told him that I had something big. He figured I had hooked the bottom is all, but I assured him, nope, I have a REALLY big fish here. Suddenly, the line let out with a high pitched whizzzz. He then agreed, I had something big.

I fought with bringing it in for the next 15 minutes or so, the guy on the boat laughed and said I would be there for a while by the looks of it. Unfortunately, it was about that time that the pulling stopped, and the line suddenly became light as a feather. Whatever it was, it had snapped the line.

The guy on the boat figured it was a bottom feeding shark, and said they could get up to 6 metres in length. He stated that they use 80 lb. test line on all their rods, so whatever it was, it was a good size.

Next time I catch up with a shark, it will be when I go cage diving with the Great Whites in South Africa.