Curtis Wells return customer and his buddy came to fish with us again this year. We got the trip off to a good start by catching this nice blue. We caught bait in the morning and headed off shore. I had heard the bite was deep so we shot for the 1200 fathom line where I turned south. Just after our turn the fish came to the long corner. It was a beautiful bite. Bill out of the water and the dorsal up. She climbed and climbed until she got the lure. Once hooked she took off. I turned and chased on her twice and after the second chase we idled up the slow moving line while it still was on the surface. The fish had settled but we got the easy line while we could. as we idle up to the fish I looked back only minutes after hooking up and a big white tip shark filled the boat right at the transom. It was a the all tackle record for sure. It would have beat the current record by at least a 100 pounds. I spun around on the line now straight up and down. Mat jammed to bait the shark and unfortunately it would bite what we had. We saw that we need to put the drag up and really pull on the fish to get it before the sharks got to it. Mat bumped up the drag and Curtis pulled in low gear. 10 minutes later the fish was to the boat and 3 sharks attacked it. It swam up the side with 3 bites out of the tail. Now it wouldn’t survive the release. If it had not been bit should we have let it go into the mouth of the sharks? The decision was made for us. We had to bring it in and eat it. it was a shame but we got to give the fish to friends when we got in.
