[-scallywag-]

My apologies to fishchaser and anyone else I offended with my previous post, I was outa line. Thanks Andy for editing my post, i am truly the Richard here.

I love the ocean and all its yummy (and not so yummy) animals, particularly sharks. So when I read this entertaining, well written post, followed by some awesome pictures, followed by some not so awesome pictures I was bummed. One because they obviously did enough research to find where the sharks where and what to use (wire leader/circle hook). And, two, after seeing a shark un-bled on the beach (for a second time) it makes me wonder if they are even eating these sharks, or just taking them for sport. Hopefully they just don't know any better.

The reasons I don't HARVEST T's, very similar to why most anglers don't keep marlin or swordfish:

I am fascinated with sharks, but T's are my favorite for so many reasons. Neat colors, fast, strong fighters, lotsa breaches when hooked, don't bother you when spear fishing, unique shape and hunting tactics, quasi warm blooded, advanced optics in an ancient predator, exc...

They are a top tier predator and instinctually selective. They have few natural enemies and they instinctually pray on slow, week or sick prey. This insures healthy breeding stocks by removing the ill equipped. Without natural selection you end up with a "genetic cesspool" of sorts....similar to that of the ever present Homo sapiens.

Tsharks have highly developed optics and are "warm bodied" (I think makos are the only other shark that can generate/regulate body temp) which makes them highly adapted to hunting in deep waters where those ugly rojo diablos (Humboldt squid) live. Read about the Humboldt squid in wiki... I believe the highly adaptive and fast growing H.squid has the ability to wipe out fisheries in a relatively short period of time if there are no other apex predator to compete for food with. Or better yet the T.shark may be one of the H.squid's only natural predators besides toothed whales (just my theory).

Like all large sharks, threshers have a low fecundity (mature in 7-13years, 2pups, 9mo gestation) and are therefore highly vulnerable to over fishing. They have been recently classified as vulnerable to extinction.

As for DFG, I believe that this time last year DFG had considered a "no take" period for threshers or punch tag (certain #of fish per tagged angler) so they are obviously concerned about them. I'm sure the gill net ban helped take some pressure off these fish, along with responsible fishing practices by most sport fishermen (circle hooks, live bait, hookless trollers, CP&R especially for females).

That said, as a sport fisherman I have no problem with targeting, harvesting and eating any legal fish or targeting them and releasing them for that matter. I do have a problem with killing a fish just to say you did. In the future please consider CP&R'ing sharks, or if you really wanna keep one at least try to take a similar size male, its not like they’re hard to catch?
If you wanna target T's from a yak for fun, but don't want to harm or harvest one, try using a 40-50lb flouro leader to the circle hook/live bait, usually the shark will break off after a couple jumps, if not, its easy to cut (unlike a wire leader). Also read this, lotsa good info on here if you wanna play nice with the T's.


http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/at...st-tshark2.jpg