rigging false albies for shark

Well guys, the hooks been set, the fish reeled in, gaffed, tail roped, and she's fully secured to the gin pole, it's time to plug in the coordinates for the head buoy, point her North, and head back to port on this one.

I had a little chit-chat today with Lisa Natanson, she works in the lab for the N.M.F.S. involved with collecting all the scientific information on sharks including length/weight ratios. She is also very involved with the Cooperative Shark Tagging Program. She is extremely knowledgeable in this field and I found my conversation with her to be very informative. Let me 1st. tell you something that had occured to me with some concern, and she cleared this up. The information they gather on sharks DOES NOT come from the cards that we submit to them. For obvious reasons, that information can be VERY INACURATE. They have complied their statistical database from 1st. hand observations of countless thousands of sharks. Very, very detailed information is taken from each specimen and recorded in scientific journals to be analyzed. They take VERY EXACT measurements of each fish, thay just don't look at it and say, "that's a 10 footer".

According to Lisa, the information they provide on the length/weight ratio is correct, but it is an average. Many factors determine what a fish's weight will be, age, sex, and also like I pointed out, the time of year you catch the fish. It seems our "Springtime" Blue Sharks are not only hungry, but their livers are considerably smaller at this time of year too. Just as a side note to this, sharks have very big livers, when cleaning your Mako, it is a good idea to keep and freeze the liver, it makes GREAT chunk for your slick on the next trip. Anyway, the bottom line is that the information they provide is correct as an average, but you can find some swings in weight depending on certain factors, some of which I mentioned above.

This is one of the things I love about our sport, you never stop learning, I learned something today, I hope some of you did as well, and, I hope Makoman16 learned something too.

Tight lines,
Matt

Great Job MAKOMATT!

Thumbs up to MakoMatt for getting to the bottom of this "discussion." It is hard to argue with a man that has "done his homework!" Thanks for taking the time to do the research.

One thing remains constant, and at one time or another, all of us have touched upon it: charts are "mean" averages! Therefore, some individual fish will lie below that chart line & some will lie above the line (in terms of weight).

OK, now back to the original question. The hook set-up all depends on how large the fillet is! I would go with 2 hooks if the fillet is going to be larger than 8-10". I have found that "short bites" occur if there is only one hook in a bait that is longer!

Yet again, this is what works for me ~ not everyone. Just like I refuse to bait a "live bluefish" with a single hook ~ I rig with a 2-hook bridle. I lost a nice mako one day when he took the back 2/3 of my 12 pound bluefish & missed the single hook! Never again will I let that happen!

Tight lines & and a smoothe drag!

MAKOMAN16

Good Job Makomatt

Well Matt thanks for doing the leg work.. I wish you would have asked her to write up an article we could post here? If you have a direct line to her ext. or the number I would be happy to see if we could work out something for the board as a winter time topic. The site will be running better as soon as George switches ISP service. The office is moving and he could never get a new line in the old office in the time it will take to finish the move so very soon the site will be flying. I and my buddy will be assisting George in setting up the Network! As far as what i came back to in this discussion. Man it is going the wrong way. First off 186 logic I don?t know why your comment to me was nasty? I agree it was a nice fish. The only grip I had was the NMFS chart seems off base! Yes I see the data but remember something the area the shark data is taken from also comes into play. Like matt said. The nor east fish in the spring will tend to be smaller. So the data location is an important factor to consider here also. But I don?t want to get onto it now till I speak with the NMFS as Matt did. As far as thinking this is just a past time. You guys are wrong this is something we all love and do! This is part of our lives! Take it seriously and enjoy it man while you can. Discussions are healthy in the sport and much knowledge can be learned from all the input. Keep it going and you will be surprised. Well got to go Togging now catch you guys tonight.