"Shark fishing at Whitby" "Whitby Shark Fishing" "lets go sharking with Rich" "whitby sharks". These are the new words on the lips of anglers taking fishing trips from Whitby.Whitby has long been famous for its huge catches of cod in numbers, and massive single record breaking cod. Those fish are still here and caught regulally in abundance by all the charter boats taking fishing trips from the port. However On August the 16th 2005 boat angling in Whitby took a major new direction. Local skipper Richard Ward had long wanted to target diverse and uncommon species from his charter boat Shytorque. Throughout 2004 and 2005 Rich had noticed the presence of sharks on the fishing grounds off Whitby and during the whitby angling festival in July 2005 Richard had actually managed to hook into his first porbeagle shark, but without the correct gear and strong line the fight had lasted only a matter of seconds whith Richard the loser..... On this occasion.
Steve Clay ( Sept 2004 Festival winner )had been onboard shytorque and witnessed Rich's encounter with the porbeagle shark, he later passed word around a few of his fishing buddies and they decided to contact rich and arrange the first ever recreational charter trip out of Whitby for shark. Steves mate Rupert Drury headed uip the operation and he started to gather as much info on angling for Porbeagle sharks as he could. Reams of paper with textbook type tactics began to arrive through the post at Richards home address and Rich soon realised the lads were serious and the dream could indeed soon become reality.
Perfect weather allowed Rupert and the guys to make their first Whitby Sharking trip on Aug 16th. The day started with makeral fishing for bait and after a short period the lads had a box full of fresh macky and headed out to the sharking grounds
The chum bucket full of ground bait was sent down with the anchor and the lads fished hard all day with Mackerel flappers on big hooks. It was about 6 hours before anything happened and then one of the rods gave the tell tale sign of a big fish and the line began to spin off the reel at a rate of knots. After a long fight the lads were suprised to see a tope of roughly 30 lbs come to the side of the boat. Catch and release was practiced and the tope, another first for Whitby charter boats returned to fight another day, perhaps they will catch it again when its doubled in weight?
Rupert was the next to encounter something different. Whilst they were waiting, they had all been fishing for mackerel to keep the chum stocks healthy. He dropped down to 10m with his mackerel trace and something either took hold or he foul-hooked something big. Whatever it was took off straight down and straightened one of his hooks out. We all looked at each other and began to wonder if there really was something bigger lurking around.
10 minutes later Ruperts rod bent over and line began to screem off the reel. After 45 minutes of wondering what was on the end of the line Rupert was totally exhausted, but so was the fish and the lads were totally gobsmacked to see what came to the surface - Whitby's first porbeagle shark. The lads on the boat all helped get the fish out the water by the appropriated method and it was measured before being returned alive and well.
The lads then returned to shore, and the story of Whitby's first shark spread far and wide. The measurements of the shark were submitted to the UK Shark Tagging Programme and they have verified that the fish was 248lbs.
To date no-one else has managed to land another porbaegle at Whitby but the boats have now started to have sightings of the sharks off Whitby yet again and today sees Richard out on another sharking trip hoping to repeat the happening of a year ago.
For more information on Shy torque charters pay a visit to thier website
I'll keep you posted on this one!!!!
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