In my last entry, I mentioned that once the weather had settled down, we would soon head out to try and find a Shark! Well on the 7th September, we did just that (well, sort of anyway.) Two of my close friends, (Matt and James) booked the boat for a 9-5 with a bunch of lads from work.

With everyone on board and a slack tide approaching, we steamed off to a wreck around 10 miles out from Swanage. After struggling to find Mackerel for at least an hour, we finally started fishing. All we seemed to be catching was the odd handful of Pout, which was becoming disappointing and a little strange, as I knew that this particular wreck holds some nice eels that are never usually shy.

As the tide eased we started to get the odd Bream. I was just making the tea when James shouted, “Fish on Tom, feels like a Tope, a good one too! The fish peeled off around 150 yards of line and showed no sign of stopping! I began to realise that this was no Tope; it had to be a Shark! I cut & buoyed the anchor and we followed the fish for 45 minutes before it eventually parted the main line. A few minutes went by talking about what had just happened, everyone was pretty much speechless and we headed back to the anchor to get on with the day. Within 20 minutes, the next one was on. We got the shark right up to the side of the boat before the line parted again. It was a Porbeagle, about 8–10ft in length and estimated weight of 250-300lb.

The tide slackened, and 5 Porbeagles came to the surface together, feeding on Pout and Mackerel that we had thrown over the side. We hooked 7 Sharks that day so indeed it was a day to remember. Although we had no Congers, no one seemed to mind that much, funny enough…