GSF Articles

Mako Madness by Steve Piper

 

“I think we have company”, I said just loud enough to be heard over the purring motor and the water slapping on the boat hull.  I wasn’t sure because it was a bit like spotting corbina in the surf.  You think you saw some movement, but with no more evidence to back it up, you decide that reflections off the water played tricks on you.  But after a few more moments, all of us, Captain Dave Trimble, Norman Orida, Pat Case and I, saw large mako sharks, accompanied by the ubiquitous blues, come gliding silently up our chum slick and under the boat.  Game on!

This was day two of the 1st edition of the Ragged Edge Bluewater Fly FishingSchool led by Captains Conway Bowman and Dave Trimble of Bowman Bluewater Guide and Outfitters here in San Diego.  Conway had conceived this as a way to introduce anglers to techniques for fly fishing for large game fish without the accompanying huge price tag.  As he explained it, many anglers save for a trip of a lifetime to travel to an exotic location to chase tarpon, marlin, sailfish or taimen, only to spend their precious angling time blowing chance after chance.  And the clincher in this deal?  The remarkable shortfin mako.  We were to find that this is an extraordinary sport fish – fast moving, hard pulling, hefty (to more than 600 lbs), with a penchant for aerial acrobatics.  Fortunately for us, Conway started fishing for the makos off of San Diego years ago, and with Dave Trimble, he has learned how to get fly fishers hooked up with them.

On day 1 of the school, seven Golden State Flycasters and friends, Bob Day, Scott McGaugh, Norman Orida, Pat Case, Ken Kaufman, Ken’s friend Joe, and I, met in a classroom at AIM Marine in Lakeside to learn the do’s and don’t’s of fly fishing for makos.  Conway covered a wide range of topics including rod, reel, line, and other equipment, flies, where and when to fish, boat handling, safety, and fighting fish.  He liberally sprinkled his presentation with fish stories.  One that stuck in my mind is when a hooked mako took off like a bat out of hell straight away from the boat, then did a U-turn and headed straight back at the boat.  Conway tried to motor away from the oncoming fish but it kept closing.  Finally, the big shark came flying out of the water and performed a cartwheel over the bow.  The client turned to Conway and said that that was very spectacular…and can we go home NOW!

Dave Trimble, it turned out, is a master rigger, and it was very interesting to watch him demonstrate – 20 lb class tippet to stainless leader ring to coffee-colored wire haywired to 6/0 hook.    I don’t own anything over an 8 wt so I couldn’t get over the 12 to 16 weight floating lines.  They looked like something you could use for rappelling off of El Capitan – rope thick.  And the fine machining and simplicity of the big Tibor and Abel reels is always something to behold.  Cool.  Conway and Dave took us outside for a fish fighting demo.   As Dave moved around like a fish, Conway explained about fighting angles and drummed into us that you need to lower the angle of the rod to use the butt to wear down the fish – no need to keep the rod high as in trout fishing.  Good stuff.

Conway and Dave use barbless hooks for the makos, and they tag each mako before release for research purposes.  The tagging process makes the release much more time consuming and potentially dangerous but Conway is clearly concerned about the well-being of these fish – as he put it, the makos have been very good to him and his business, and he would like to return the favor.

So back to day 2.  We all met at Dana Landing in Mission Bay at 6 am and split up into 3 boats piloted by Conway, Dave, and Jeff Stock.  Bowman Bluewater has a large quiver of bluewater fly rods and reels for client use, so we spent some time matching up outfits with boats – some guys wanted to fish their own outfits, some were left-handed, some right-handed.  We ended up with 8, 12, and 14 wt outfits in our boat in addition to outfits brought by Pat Case.  The first stop was off of La Jolla to catch some bonito and mackerel on 8 wt outfits.  This turned out to be a good chance to get used to the boat, to limber up the fly rods, and to get a few casting tips from Captain Dave.  When we had made enough bait, we motored a few miles offshore to one of the Bowman Bluewater hot spots.  Fish chunks and slurry were bagged and hung over the side and we slowly motored along to lay down a chum slick.  When we stopped to rig up, Dave told us that it could take from 20 minutes to a couple of hours to lure in some makos.  It turned out that we were lucky -- our first one arrived in 15 minutes or so.

As we bobbed on the bluewater waiting for the sharks, even though the seas were pretty calm, I was glad that I had decided to apply a Scopolamine patch the night before;  I didn’t have to think about breaking into a cold sweat and turning green and could concentrate on the fishing.   Several others in the group decided to do the same; Norman Orida is a veteran of many long range bluewater trips and he has learned to split his in half to avoid getting dry mouth, etc.  A good tip for future trips.

For the next few hours, we took turns, one angler at a time going one on one with the sharks.  The routine in our boat was for Dave Trimble to cast a huge orange plastic teaser with a conventional outfit, to tease a mako into pursuit.  When the fish was into casting range,  he would yank the teaser out of the water, and direct the angler to cast the big 12” orange fly close to but outside the mako.   The idea is to get the mako to take the fly going away from the boat since some of them go airborne immediately and could end up in the boat otherwise.  The sharks generally seemed happy to eat the fly but it was a bit tricky to get a good hook set.  But once the shark felt the hook, it was off to the races. 

As we took turns over the next few hours, there was plenty of excitement.  Knuckle-busting runs, spectacular multiple jumps, shredded fly line, broken wire leaders, bent hooks, lost flies, makos chasing blues under the boat, and shark antics at the boat on the tag and release.   In our boat, we ended up with 5 makos and 3 blues from 50 to 80 lbs. Last year, one of Dave’s clients landed a 600 lb mako and one of Jeff’s went over 400 lbs.  Since from fighting the smaller models, my biceps were sore, my knees were banged up from bracing myself against the gunwales as I staggered around the boat following the fish, and my stomach felt the effect of holding the fighting butt, I can only imagine…

As we were enjoying cold beers back at the dock, we all heartily agreed that the fishing had far, far exceeded all of our expectations.   All told, the 7 of us totaled about 27 sharks, mostly makos, from 50 to 110 lbs.  I’d like to thank Bob Day for coordinating this trip, my fellow students for making this a lot of fun, and Conway, Dave and Jeff for putting us onto many fish!   This is a unique fishery for a remarkable game fish right here in San Diego, and Conway and Dave have it figured out.  If you’d like to get in on the action, contact Conway through his website at http://www.bowmanbluewater.com.