I hear that.. Do they even make a ziplock this big?
Tsharks in So Cal generally fall into either the sub adult category under 200 pounds and adults over 200. The subs hold tight to shore, school up and are super easy to target. The adults migrate up the coast further offshore, move in smaller groups and are a lot harder to find and target.
Back in the 90s T shark populations were in trouble because the gillnetters were wiping then out. A large one like the one in my pic above were and extremely rare catch back then because few were making it to adulthood.
They were targeting the subadults tight to shore with their nets and nailing them in huge numbers. So the DFG made them move their nets out to three miles, and since then we have had an huge increase in Tshark population number. Now catches like the one in my pic above are now common place, which shows clearly that protecting pups benefits the population as a whole..
The obvious conclusion is that if you protect the sub-adult pups from over exploitation you not only end up with more breeding adults, but the population numbers increase across the board. What I'm saying here is the old save the breeder argument is BS. You get more benefit from releasing pups then protecting breeders.
These sharks have no natural predators other then man, possibly white sharks, and killer whales, and whites and killers though they can eat them hardly ever do.
There is no reason that this shark:
Wouldn't grow up into one of these if released...
.....and eventually get much bigger then that.
That second shark may look big, but that male is just reaching breeding age kind of the equivalent in biology of a 10 inch Calico. I wouldn't of even taken it if it had not died on the line, as it cut my total T season that year down to thirty minutes.. (I only keep one a year)
We live in a shark nursery so we have an abundance of small easy to target sub-adult sharks both Mako and threshers. Pretty much every other fish we fish for has a size limit, most states have size limits on their sharks, but California does not.
Something like 95% of the sharks taken by recreational fishery in So.Cal are not of breeding age. If that was the case for Seabass, Calicos, Halibut or any other fish the DFG would instantly stop it. The only reason they do not when it comes to sharks is the commercial and business interests have lobbied to keep the pup fishery open. The commercials still target pups, even if they now have to do it further offshore and they do not want the pup shark fishery closed down.
Imagine if we lived in a Marlin Nursery with an abundance of baby Marlin, would it make sense to take twenty or thirty pound Marlin and only release the adults? Of course it wouldn't. We are sport fisherman and we would know enough to protect our Marlin for the trophy big game fishery they supply as adults.
Over the years a lot of misinformation has been pushed around on this subject. By a lot of self proclaimed Gurus. I'm no Guru... I'm not going to tell anyone what they can and can not do. The catch above is legal no doubt but I will say that if the DFG is not going to regulate us properly, I think then we need to regulate ourselves.
When people ask me about fishing Tsharks: I tell them to only target sharks over 200 pounds, and to only keep the ones that die on the line. Big T's over 200 often will fight so hard they kill themselves in the process. Unlike pups that do not fight as hard, and release well, the adults will literally just beat themselves to death. That big shark above at one point jumped three body lengths through the air, and also sounded at one point 1200 feet straight down. Nothing local fights as hard as an adult T shark, they are unbelievable fighters when they get big. Unfortunately that means they do die often on the line. So if you fish for them you not only need the right gear but you better have freezer space. Like I said I only take one a year, and once I get that one, I quit fishing for them. Which has lead to some pretty short seasons for me, but that is all part of the game.
A 200+ T shark is the hardest fighting fish we have off Southern California, they fight much harder when they are big and muscled up then when they are juveniles and a big T easily outfights a Marlin of the same size. Archer says the only fish that outfights them as adults are Giant Bluefin. I've never caught a Giant Bluefin but I'd be inclined to agree with him on that one.
These are southern California's true Big Game Trophy Fish, my take is to let them go and target them when they are big enough to put on the real show.
Just my take though.
Jim