A fish in fifteen

As you know we put out lines every day to try to catch fish. But this was the one thing I did not expect to catch! It was also the perfect timing to catch a fish. 

On Tuesday I had two online classes for school. The first one was Computer, which started at 1 and ended at 1:45. I then have fifteen minutes until my next class which yesterday was Geography. 

At about 1:47 I saw the hand line pop from its quick release and thought “oh, another Tuna!” Then I saw it go slack, that means the fish bit the lure, didn’t get hooked, and then swam away. So I sat back down and about two seconds later I heard the clicker for the rod go off. And this time it was ON!

I ran to get ready to start fighting the fish while the drag was still going. I picked the rod up, ready to fight it, and I felt the tail shakes. Tail shakes are when you are fighting a tuna and their tails are super powerful and you can feel it through the rod. By then I was almost 100% sure it was a tuna. 

Then it popped up on the surface because we were still going fast, and it looked then like it was possibly a tuna or… a shark?

I reeled it closer to the boat and I got a close look at it and it turned out it was a juvenile thresher shark! Probably 8-10lbs. 

There’s no way that we would eat a bull shark, especially a small one like this. Then we had to unhook it, but the pliers were in my room. So I had to keep the shark in the water with water flowing over its gills to keep it alive. 

Then mom showed up with the pliers and passed them to dad while I tried to bring the shark closer to dad but the gaffe was in the way. So I was holding the gaffe and the rod at the same time and started panicking because I can’t hold both at the same time for long. So I started yelling “grab the gaffe!” because I knew I was about to drop the rod. Finally mom got the gaffe and dad pulled the line up, and unhooked the shark with the pliers and it swam away. 

In Sportfishing it is considered a successful catch when the leader – which is the portion of the line holding the lure- touches the tip of the rod

We are almost 100% sure the shark is completely fine because it was not bleeding at all and their mouths are really tough. 

Then I asked “what time is it?” And it turned out that I had 3 minutes until Geography started. When my class started, the first thing I told my teacher was “I just caught a shark!”