Bio: I been to Hollywood, I been to Redwood. I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold.
Great info, Fred. I hope to read that book one day and then go use the info. I have not really started fishing the sharks yet- although I have caught a few small ones while tuna fishing.
As far as circle hooks in sunshine rigs, I don't like the circles in the baits at all. They work best if they are allowed to swing around and catch jaw corners. Putting a C-hook in a bait restricts that as does pinning one.
I have always used and made "fillet pins" for either big strips cut and trimmed from Humbolts, or fresh mackerel fillets. Those new Bait Bridles are a great way to bridle a whole bait with either a J or C hook. Use a smaller mack or ballyhoo for threshers.
The first three shots are how I rig both squid strips and mackerel fillets on J-hooks.
The next shots are of a Bait Bridle being put on a big bait. It is the best way to rig baits with circle hooks that I have ever seen. This is how to rig it with a live one. I do not like pitching a live bait because a thresher will try to kill it with his tail and might wind up tail hooked, even with a C-hook and a livie has an "engine" and there is no sense in letting one that could make "an escape run" in the water when the Toad raises a shark. Stop the boat and feed 'em some kind of fillet. And when it starts to swim off, set the hook with a J and just hang on with the C-hook.
For whole mackerel I use the same method as you see being used on the ballyhoo. Bridle the mouth shut. We often pitch ballyhoo up here, but this is a great way to bridle a smaller mack that's easy for a thresher to eat.
My pal Scott Cazel with a smallish Humbolt, so fishermen from other areas can see what size squid I make my strip baits out of. I usually fillet each tapered fillet again, angling the cut upwards as I approach the head, making a strip with a nice, meaty, fat head, tapering down to a thinner size toward the rear, which makes for a great wiggle. I cut a lot of different size strips out of the squids, including some really big ones for the downrigger and planer and for swordfish baits (Shhhhh!). I "cure" these strips in salt water, ice, kosher salt and baking soda for a few hours before vac packing and freezing them up a half dozen to a pack.
There you have it! The way that I, at least, rig pitch baits for sharks. Hope this helps.
Oh, and that's a Boone Cairns Swimmer with a big circle hook in it. It is the only plug that I will bother trolling anymore for sharks or anything else. Does the C-hook work? Nah, I just put it there because it looks cool (not!)
OK Fred, C hooks stuck in a whole bait might drastically reduce hook ups of any kind then, am I reading you right? I mostly use weighted lures like BOM and BH with a sunshine or double hook when trolling for Ts . Besides no hook at all is there a rig you like using for these types of lures that will reduce tail hook ups and allow you a chance to drop it back?
Hey BankRobber, know what kind of shark that is in your avatar? Grim Ripper, the star of my novel by the same name, meets one down deep in one of the chapters...Tenguzame...The Goblin Shark.
FROM THE NOVEL, GRIM RIPPER
Tenguzame!
Ripper encountered the horrible creature while she was hunting in the complete darkness of a thousand feet of water.
There were times when Ripper searched for deep water prey and when she did she often encountered strange creatures that never appeared on the surface and were almost unknown to man.
Her huge black eyes could actually see in the stark darkness of the depths, giving her an advantage over the deep sea animals like the squids and the strange, sometimes fluorescent fishes she hunted for and among. The strange, glowing bioluminescent fishes, squids, huge shrimp-like creatures and octopi use their varying green, red, yellow and blue colors to both attract prey and to become it in the case of another predator locating it by the light its body emitted. The vast majority of the denizens of the depths use bioluminescence like a double-edged sword. The same eerie glow that attracts food sometimes brings those that in turn feed on them.
Not all of the deep water species hunt with and attract forage with the light pulsing from their bodies. There is one in particular that has developed a unique hunting skill that has been refined over hundreds of millions of years. And like the Grim Rippers, nature finished perfecting its design many millions of years ago when strange creatures populated the world’s seas, many looking as strange as the one Ripper encountered that day. It too was a shark, but it was unlike any other kind of shark in the world.
She was swimming in over a thousand feet of water when she came across the strange beast. The monster that slowly swam into her circle of vision was a contradiction in appearance. It is called “Tenguzame”. On the one hand this new kind of shark that swam before her was like an apparition from a science fiction horror movie. On the other, far different hand, its outlandish colors and strange body would remind many of a bubble gum colored cartoon character of some kind. These are absolute physical contradictions as far as sea creatures, especially sharks, are concerned.
Ripper slowly circled the seeming apparition as it swam steadily along. The other returned her curious stare. She was probably the first mako shark it had ever seen and it was probably searching its own ancient memories to determine if this other great fish was a foe or not.
Unlike it is with dolphins and humans there is no such thing as a friend among the ocean fishes. Another fish is either a threat or it is not. It is a simple matter of life or death. No alliances or friendships. If a newcomer is a threat, flee it. If it is not a threat, ignore it. If it is food, eat it. Both sharks were in the process of determining what the other represented on this simple natural scale as they swam together in the depths.
Tenguzame is a shark that is rarely seen by humans. It lives in great depths and the only ones ever captured have been taken very recently in special nets that have been designed to bore ever deeper into the core of the oceans’ hearts. Now that the industrial fishing fleets have annihilated most of the surface species they have been forced to begin searching far deeper water than ever before.
In the process of plumbing greater depths new species are being discovered regularly. Some have been found to be edible, while many others are not. As it is with the traditionally harvested fishes, those that are brought to the surface in the nets all die and are tossed back into the water. As with most other forms of industrialized fishing, this is a complete waste. It is a terrible blow to the deep water environment in which all species grow slowly due to the very cold water that they inhabit.
Predictably, it was the Japanese who pioneered this new method of netting very deep waters. They were the first to discover Tenguzame and are the ones who named this new shark. The name aptly translates to “goblin shark”. It is probably the most appropriately named fish of them all!
The goblin is not a small fish like many of the deep water animals. It grows to at least twelve feet long and possibly far longer. It has long, thin, razor sharp teeth meant for capturing the fishes and squids that make up its diet. Shark remains have also been found in their stomachs, but the goblin shark is no match for a mature mako. It lacks the speed and incredible strength that it takes to tangle and win with one of Ripper’s tribe.
Encounters between the two are rare because goblins never get near the surface and near surface waters that the makos spend most of their time in and the makos rarely hunt the deep water where Ripper came across this one.
This very odd looking shark has a long, broad, serpentine tail that is somewhat reminiscent of the thresher shark. The large tail gives the already horrid looking Tenguzame a nasty, half-eel, half-fish look. It is likely that it uses this long, broad tail for both swimming and for striking prey, just as the thresher does. Its fins are far more rounded than those of most other sharks. They are more reminiscent of a grouper or other bottom dweller than they are a shark’s and reflect the need for maneuverability over speed in the near freezing, slow motion world of the great depths.
The most remarkable thing about this already remarkable fish is its head. Unlike any other known fish, the goblin shark has a long, pointed fleshy protrusion that extends over and well past its head. This odd looking projection is covered with the tiny organs known as the Lampules of Lorezino that represent a shark’s scenting and electrical receptor organs. The goblin has very small eyes and it is clear that unlike the many glowing inhabitants it lives among and preys on, the long projection that grows over its head is the main hunting tool it uses to locate prey via scent and electronic emissions in the absolute darkness that it lives and thrives in.
Below the projection is a head that looks like it was designed by the devil himself. Like many sharks, the goblin can “pop” its fang-studded jaws out and forward when it strikes prey. The main difference is that the goblin’s jaws pop out much further than any other shark’s, giving it an otherworldly, demonic appearance that defies verbal description. As you can see from the drawing, it is something that must be seen, rather than read about. Words simply do not do this particular animal justice.
The teeth are very long, thin and pointed. They are much smaller in diameter than a mako’s and are clearly designed for grasping, holding onto and tearing the meat of soft-fleshed animals like squid and other creatures of the depths. There is a pronounced overbite with the upper jaw extending well beyond the lower one. The reason for this is a mystery so far.
The two sharks continued to swim slowly and steadily alongside one another for a few minutes before the goblin suddenly turned sharply to the left and sped off. Ripper soon sensed the same thing that Tenguzame had. A large school of four foot long Humboldt squids was feeding on one of their own off in the distance.
The goblin ripped into the squids first, striking several with wicked tail slaps that stunned them. It had grabbed one with its dagger-like teeth by the time Ripper charged through the scattering squids, chopping several in half with her own sharp ivory scalpel-like blades.
A mixture of squid ink, blood and shredded squid flesh spread on the watery dinner table the two sharks had prepared and both feasted greedily on their victims. Within minutes other goblins smelled and sensed the killing field and began to arrive. At first they cautiously circled the two killers. After a few minutes, hunger overcame their caution and some of them began making threatening runs at the two diners in attempts to steal or share in their kills, or perhaps to scare them off.
It was a mistake.
Tenguzame turned toward the first of his brazen cousins and snapped his huge, toothy jaws at it. To a human observer the goblin’s bite would look more like a savage snarl than a mere bite attempt with the only thing needed to complete the vicious scenario being a loud roar! The lucky goblin that had missed being snapped up dodged away and avoided a terrible injury or even death. Then Tenguzame ignored the other goblins and returned to continue tearing his victim apart.
Ripper’s reaction was different. She had tolerated the original goblin, but as soon as the first of the newcomers ran at her and tried to steal the squid she was feasting on she reacted with the typical aggression that her tribe is known for. As the first goblin swam by her she spun in the water and lashed out at its tail with her awful teeth. When her jaws slammed shut she had bitten off a substantial piece of her antagonizer’s leathery tail. She spat it out as the bitten goblin darted off with two others in hot pursuit. It appeared that the goblins were cannibals, just like the mako sharks. The one Ripper had bitten would be hunted down and disposed of by its hungry brothers and sisters.
The squid she had attacked and eaten had satisfied Ripper’s hunger, so she did not pursue the goblin that she had wounded. Instead, she slowly swam off in the other direction, leaving Tenguzame and his clan to feed on the squids and each other and to await the new death nets that were reaching down into their deep water home to claim them. And maybe even her.
Hours later Ripper arrived back on the surface, only to find a purple gladiator cruising above her. Her hunger had returned, so she immediately began to stalk this, her favorite and very dangerous prey. She had no way of knowing that other creatures, ones that were also very dangerous to her, had their sights set on this particular swordfish.
Be wary, Ripper! Do not be blinded by the great gladiator!
Glad you enjoyed the read. That book isn't for everybody, but every single shark fisherman who has read it has loved it and her, my great queen. You know her from her earliest days as an inter-uterine cannibal, fighting her natal brothers and sisters, through her many adventures and travels from here, where she was born, to The Baja, to Hawaii and other points until the end of the book, where it will put a wrench to your heart and a scar on you memory forever. Long live Ripper!
The book is a trilogy of three major segments of her life. There are about thirty drawings done by me that begin some selected chapters. Each drawing has to do with something that happens in that chapter.
If you love the sharks and you get this book, odds are you will be just like the last guy, a BD member whose name I will not use without his permission (hint, he's a helluva halibut catcher). He and his wife were in the final, mad stages of preparing for a two week vacation that they are now on when he got Ripper. I know that he will confirm this upon his return, but he not only read the entire book (and it is not a little one) before they left, he stayed up all night the night before they left "because I just couldn't put it down".
Oh yes, Grim Ripper. If you are interested in sharks, as two major book reviewers said in their reviews, "You MUST read this book!"
Can't find my drawing of tenguzame (bubble gum pink!) but here are just a couple more drawings from the book that I honestly believe that my Shadow Girl and I were sent here to write.
First pict, "Princess Ripper" two years old
Then, "Orca" (wait until you read THAT chapter!)
Next to it, "ICBM" "Inter Continent Ballistic Mako" NOT THE FINAL DRAWING - IT GETS A LOT BETTER
Then, "Smoke Screen"
Next to it, "Duel"
Then, "Night Leaper"
Then "Sweet Lily", a main character in the book and Shadow Girl's incredible friend in real life.
Thanks for the excerpt Fred, sounds like and unusual perspective. Oh and I did know it was a goblin but only because I got the pic off of a web site that said " here is a picture of a goblin shark" I just thought it looked kind of goofy and strange. I didn't know it was a deep dweller or may use its tail for hunting. Neat.
If you love the sharks and you get this book, odds are you will be just like the last guy, a BD member whose name I will not use without his permission (hint, he's a helluva halibut catcher). He and his wife were in the final, mad stages of preparing for a two week vacation that they are now on when he got Ripper. I know that he will confirm this upon his return, but he not only read the entire book (and it is not a little one) before they left, he stayed up all night the night before they left "because I just couldn't put it down".
Sorry Fred, just read this thread.
Yup, it was me. I couldn't stop reading Grim Ripper. It's an AMAZING story, for anyone who fishes in, or just loves the ocean. I'm going to read it a few more times too.
Truth be told, I've had the good fortune of recently corresponding with Fred while ordering my spider bars for halibut and he's simply amazing too. Look at his expertise, volume of work, and willingness to share not only advice but detailed diagrams. This is the best damned information on Bloody Decks, bar none!
It breaks my heart to read this thread. Look at the effort Fred puts into this trying to help others and not simply for monetary gain. How so few are smart enough to realize what is being given is beyond me.
I just thought it looked kind of goofy and strange. I didn't know it was a deep dweller or may use its tail for hunting. Neat.
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