I get this call on the raido from Captain David Gross: “Captain Tom, we’ve got a shark on with a very long tail. What kind is it? Should we try to boat it?” I think a minute and thresher shark comes to mind. Brian Gerich and Ed Stapleton, both from southern California are the anglers aboard and when they get close they clearly identify it as a thresher – they’ve seen them before. Unfortunately, the shark was hooked on a salmon rod with a 40 pound mono leader and 20 pound main line. Despite a 30 minute effort to get the fish close enough to the boat for gaffing (threshers are excellent eating), the rougly 8 food long shark eventually abraids the leader and escapes. To the best of our knowledge, only one thresher has been landed Southeast Alaska and that came from a commercial vessel. With the shark excitement over, Gerich and Stapleton returned to more normal targets and put a limit of silvers and halibut in the boat along with a king. A second king they hooked was devoured by a sea lion. If only we could pursuade the shark to dine on the sea lion, but it would take more than a thresher to do in a 2000 pound stellar sealion bull.
In a very rare occurence Brian Gerich and Ed Stapleton, fishing with Captain David Gross