Alaska Blues

  A great morning of salmon fishing had ended. I grabbed the radio mic and called one of my guide buddies.
  "How were the blue sharks here on the Cape yesterday?" I asked.
  "There were some that gave us trouble," came his voice over the radio.
  "Thanks. That gives me the info I need for halibut fishing," I replied.
  I motored the boat out of the salmon troll area and drifted while cleaning the twenty four silver salmon. I wanted all the fresh blood completely gone before I anchored for halibut.
  When the blue sharks move into our area they can completely shut down your halibut fishing by biting off every bait you try to send to the bottom for halibut. Once they gather below the boat you are just feeding sharks instead of getting the halibut bait to the bottom.
  I baited the four halibut lines and sent them to the bottom. The eager fishermen and one fisherwoman were anxious to catch some good halibut and other bottom fish.
  "I feel a bite!" shouted one of the clients. He did indeed "feel" the bite, as he is blind.
  Bud came up for a fishing trip with his son, daughter, and son-in-law. A remarkable man who is not letting his blindness stand in his way of what he has loved his entire life.
  I watched his halibut rod bend over and coached, "Reel, reel, reel. Get him Bud!"
  Bud cranked the reel handle as hard as he could to get the circle hook set in the fish.
  "Wow, you've got a good one, Bud," I encouraged.
  The rod bent way over as the big fish pulled.
  Snap! the line parted.
  "Oh oh, I know what that was," I said, "A silly blue shark."
  Sure enough, upon inspecting his broken line, we could see where the shark's rough hide had sanded the line in half.
  I rebated his line and sent him back down. The bait did not reach the bottom before the shark had him again. Snap! Another broken line.
  "O.K., now we've got our work cut out for us," I told the clients. We are going to have to really bomb the baits quickly to the bottom to miss the sharks. I added another pound to the weights in order to get them down faster.
  It was quite some time later when Bud's son, Cory, had a big fish bite.
  "Crank, crank, get him!" I coached as he powered the reel into the big fish.
  The rod was bending but not throbbing like a halibut, and suddenly the line started taking off away from the boat.
  Halibut always fight to get back to the bottom, not running away from the boat.
  "You've got a shark on,Cory!" I shouted to him. I raced to his rod and grabbed it out of the rail handing it to him.
  "You're going to have to fight it by hand in order to chase this fish around the boat!"
  The shark did its best to tangle in everything. We were racing around the boat grabbing halibut lines out of the way.
  "Go over that line! Under this one! Look out he is heading around the motors!"
  There were times that big shark pulled so hard it had Cory plastered to the side of the boat, hanging on for dear life!
  What an exciting fight with a huge fish.
  I kept waiting for the line to snap as the shark bit the leader in two, but we just kept on gaining on it.
  "I see it!" I shouted, as a huge blue shape appeared out of the deep water.
  "Let me have your line. You just stay by me and be ready in case he makes another run. I'll have to let go of the line if he does," I told Cory.
  I eased the big shark up close and at last got a big shark hook into its mouth.
  "Hang tough!" I shouted as the shark went crazy rolling over and over. I held him to the side of the boat until he was done thrashing.
  "Fish coming on board!" I shouted, as I heaved the big shark onto the deck.
  We all stood there panting and looking at the massive shark.
  We hi-fived and whooped it up for a while then took some great pictures.
  Cory had won the battle against a great fish.
  What an exciting day in Alaska.