Quote:
Originally Posted by monkeyfishturds
Michael King's 12 1/2 foot total length thresher, was the largest one I saw. Does anyone have a length table that could estimate what that thresher weighed?
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Yes there are charts are all over the web.
The NMFS Shark length weight Charts work on fork length, not total length. Without the fork length it's just a guess. Some say the fork length is half the full body length on T sharks, but personally I've found the the fork is usually is slightly more then half the body length.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maui jim
Damn....am I too late to make popcorn???  |
Popcorn indeed.
I've probably seen more fights over guessing thresher weight online then any thing else. Years ago I caught a larger T fishing out of Redondo that I estimate at around 350 pounds or more. One day we were talking about catching Big Ts on Bloody Decks and Steve M the light line T shark expert asked me it's fork length and I said I don't know but I told him I thought the total length was something like 12'8" Steve came back and told me the shark was only 250 pounds according to the NMFS tables. I was like WTF that impossible the shark was as big around as a large trash can. We eneded up getting a huge fight about it.
Steve and I are now good friends and he put me on my first local Marlin a couple of years ago. I highly respect him as a person, as an angler, and know that even though he can be a hard ass when it comes to fishing he's not only serious but pretty FN straight up. I now realize he wasn't being and ass back on BD but just going by the book.
As it turned out the problem was not with Steve's estimate at all. Months after the online fight I was down at the old Dock and talking to Richie my slip neighbor and we started talking about online fishing idiots and their ridiculous drama. I told him about Steve and his estimate for my shark. Richie was like: WTF Dude your shark was pushing like 400 pounds. I'm like yeah that's what I thought but the charts say a 12' 8" or shark with around a 6.5' fork length is only 250 pounds. Ritchie started laughing and said: Yeah Jim but your shark was 14' 8" I know because I'm the guy who measured it.
Let's just say I'm better at fishing then with numbers. Ritchie produced the documentation where he wrote down the length and I realized that basically I got in a huge fight with Steve over nothing just because I'd forgotten the length and said the wrong number when asked.
In all fairness the difference between 12'8" and 14' 8" is huge on paper but when your used to catching things 3, 4, 5 foot long they are both seem monstrously huge.
So with that in mind. If I had to guess a 12.5 foot total length Thresher I'd say it would likely have around a 6.5 fork length which would put it's weight at around 250 pounds. A 14.5 foot Thresher would have closer to a 7.5 foot fork length and weigh in at around 365 pounds.
I don't know who Mike King is. Never heard of him. I know some Mike's who fish in Malibu but they are not big thresher fisherman.
If the Thresher was in fact 12.5 feet it was probably around 250 pounds, still a young shark, not a true adult and if female not yet mature enough to breed.
Here's a good graph that been around for years.
You might notice that the Females do not even mature until around 14+ feet or 300+ and after that their weights vary wildly depending on if they are carrying pups.
That is catch Data from the Atlantic but weight to length I've found it to be more comparable to our local fish then the standard NMFS National Marine Fisheries Sevice chart.
At any rate a 12 1/2 foot T shark from a kayak is a fn Monster. Of course you couldn't land that fish just anywhere. The beauty of Malibu especially when they come into corral canyon is it's shallow and they can't sound all your line off like they can in deep water or when offshore. I've never caught one that big off a kayak it's the largest I've heard of and no doubt that would be that place to do it.