Quote:
Originally Posted by lowprofile
I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thanks for the advice though
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You might consider wearing some leg protection a leather jacket and some heavy gloves. Also you might want to rig a flygaff/ float rig.
The only times I've been hurt by Makos is when I was trying to get the hook out. When they were hanging head up at leader then jumped straight up right in my face. I've never had one hit me square but have caught my hand on a tooth more then once which always leads to a pretty good cut.
Never gaff them in the head. You want to gaff them across the back behind the dorsal. That way they are pulling away from you when they freak out.
Gaffing them in the head then letting them hang facing you is like pointing a loaded shotgun at your face. Fine if it doesn't go off, but if it jumps right into you especially open mouthed like it's trying to throw the hook it can really fuck you up.
Like I said I get it and have thought about this a lot. I would get a fly gaff.....
and rig about a six foot lanyard from it to a polyform float like these.
I then would take another twenty feet of rope and attach it to the float.
The idea here is you would gaff the big mako, let it pull the float out away from you, so you can let out a some rope and let it tow you around holding on to the end while it freaks out. The float will keep the gaff set no matter what it does, kind of like a harpoon float.
After while it will seem like it wears itself out and dies. Don't trust that. You want to keep a long razor sharp knife at the ready, and when it seems spent pull it along side then stab the knife behind the head and cut the spinal cord. It won't be dead, and it still could clamp down on your hand, but it will no longer be able to jump or thrash around.
I came up with that rig after one trip fishing Makos on my 14 foot skiff. I had a big mako at leader but could not budge him high enough for the gaff. Finally I really put a lot of pressure on him and he jumped straight up maybe ten feet into the air so close I could touch him. Fortunately when he came down he hit the railing and went out not in, but it made me realize that if I had a really large mako say over 500lb do the same thing, and actually landed in my skiff that it would completely destroy it.
So I came up with that float rig to keep huge sharks on gaff away from the boat until they slow down enough to deal with them, and I always carry it when sharking.
Here's a pic, of it with my skiff and a small T around 200.
More direct I'm just as crazy as you are. Good hunting
