queensland New years day sharking

[nadders]

Arriving back from the coast at midday on new years day, i decided i'd do a bit of sharking to welcome the new year. Headed to newstead, got some bait and another kind soul donated a pike eel to me (this happens a lot, thankfully!) so I set up the rods. Nothing happening at newstead, not a touch so i went to bretts wharf instead.

After not too long, i got hit, and i got hit hard. 10 or so minutes of fighting and a nice big bullshark surfaces by far my biggest fish to date, I couldn't get him on the pontoon but i would estimate him to have been about 1.7m. He was really beefy and round, and very strong. Since i had no way of getting him up to the pontoon, i tried my best to take a photo while also trying to hold him still, and then his tail whipped my leader and snapped it just above the trace. The stuff in the foreground is the wristband of the camera, and you can just make out the eyes/outline of the shark a distance away to the left:

After a few more uneventful hours and a brief storm interlude, the gale force winds of which sent my foldable chair flying into the river :\, I decided that i'd stick it out till dawn and head under the story bridge to use the rest of my eel, since i'd been meaning to try it out. It was quiet for a bit, got a few very tenacious mudcrabs (wouldn't let go of the eel until i went up and tapped on its claws with my pliers..too bad she was a female lol)

Then as the sun rose, i started seeing some surface action with a few mullets jumping around, and what appeared to be a fin chasing them. 10 seconds after seeing the fin my rod went off, i thought i'd hooked another big'un with the way it was fighting a few minutes in i see a splash on the surface and then a little shark jumps clear into the air, once and then once more again. After a bit he made it to the bank. Looks like this one has met some fishermen before, he had some line scars and looked a little bit worse for wear, which was surprising since he fought so well:

He measured about 80cm to the fork, and was released and swam off after a long time of swimming him in the water. Phew, i thought he was dead but i didn't wanna give up

All in all i had a fun 12 or so hours out and about gotta love chrissy holidays. Really enjoying the sharking right now as well, and if the guy who donated the pike eel reads this site then thankyou

cheers,

Dan

[Angus]

Well done mate your killing it at the moment.

Nice size shark from bretts as well!

Angus

[wesfish]

great effort , nice little bully there, pity about the bigger one, maybe you should get a length of electrical condue and make a tail roper up ..will try and find my old one and take a photo and post it..to give you an idea how to make one..

[nadders]

Yeah Wes i was thinking about making one of them, would make things much easier. another few pairs of arms would help in that situation too though hehe :woohoo:

[pinkey]

Nice one what gear are you using?

[nadders]

the rod that brought the big fella has 15lb braid on a shimano 3500B baitrunner with 90lb wire and 2 7/0 hooks, little fella same wire, 30lb mono on a 6500B baitrunner

[dan25]

awesome!. Good work mate. Im going for another try to catch my first shark on Tuesday Cant wait!