Shark tales: Rodeo anglers share close encounters of the angry kind

Seeing rows of teeth and hearing the ominous music from Jaws, anglers have been launching their boats into the Gulf to tame a ferocious shark and win acclaim in the Destin Fishing Rodeo’s Shark Saturday competition with their very own shark tale.

One such angler, Richard Boyes of Fort Walton Beach, spent more than an hour in a fighting chair to reel in a mako shark on the Lock On with Captain John King. He said when he finally got it onto the boat, it came in with teeth bared.

“It rolled when it came into the boat and turned one of the gaff’s into a pretzel,” Boyes said. “The three or four of us that were trying to gaff the shark jumped up onto the coolers. It was a lot of fun.”
Boyes caught his 212-pound mako with a mullet, on a 35-pound test line. He said his arm was so sore the next day, he had a hard time even tying his shoes.

“Makos are your more fierce of the shark,” said Captain Daniel Brennen of the Gulf Breeze. “They’re always watching you.”

But Makos aren’t the only sharks that can catch a fisherman off gaurd. Tom Stewart, mate on the Just-B-Cause with Captain Ken Bolden, learned that first hand while helping angler, Brandon Paine, pull in a hammerhead.

Stewart said they were out bottom fishing one day when a shark was attracted by one of the fish they let go. The anglers on the boat wanted to pursue it, and after a bit of searching and 30 minutes of fighting by Paine, the hammerhead was ready to be pulled into the boat.

“I gaffed him, then Ken gaffed him, and he just lifted his head up like, okay, you got me,” Stewart said. “I just grabbed him by the hammer to help pull him over the gunnel, and then I stepped back because I knew all hell was gonna break loose, and sure enough it did.”

The hammerhead began thrashing around the boat, almost knocking rods out of their holders. In the midst of the mayhem, the 217.5-pound hammerhead smacked Stewart’s forearm with his tail.
The welt covering Stewart’s forearm was still visible when he told the Log his shark tale, but he said it wasn’t anything to complain about.

“It just “kinda smarted at first,” he said, shrugging off the incident.

While Boyes and Stewart managed to bring in their sharks with no more than a couple of sore arms, shark hunters hoping to take the top spot on one of the last two Shark Saturdays have to be careful.

“Anytime you’re dealing with a big animal fishing, it’s dangerous,” Weighmaster Bruce Cheves said. “In an instant, there can be a serious injury.”

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