NJFishing.com Your Best Online Source for Fishing Information in New Jersey - Funny, Epic and major fails..the story of our first shark trip

Our shark trip was June 8th, 2014 and its been 2 years in the making. I've been fishing with my best friend and his father for years, and recently they upgraded their 21ft Aquasport to a 235 Sailfish Kingfish Edition boat and opening up a whole new world of fishing.. Shark Fishing. We begin to research, share thought, read some more, look at countless videos online and even join Mako Mania last year with a co-worker of mine on his buddies boat. On that day of Mako Mania, we hook into a thresher and quite fittingly get hooked ourselves into shark fishing. Its on, we must setup a trip on his boat, again more research, more tackle and finally we set a date, send invites out. We send 3, busy and cant make it, send more..busy, 8 total invites, 8 declines, no problem, we shall 2 man this trip.

Our day finally arrives, my buddy picks me up at 2:40am and we make our way down the shore, we stop at our favorite tackle and bait shop, Atlantic Bait and Tackle. As usual, pete fills us in with some info, we have a chat, grab our bait and supplies and off we go! Get to the boat, set up and leave marina around 5AM. We arrive to Choppa at 6:30am.. game faces on.

We setup the chum, grab our rigs, grab bait and set up 2 Bunker and 1 Blue Fish Fillet. The fails begin to add up after this, We finish everything and begin the waiting game, I notice the chum bag a bit far out..no biggie, i look over again and its behind the engine! Crap! we are losing the chum bag, we quickly reverse, i grab the gaf, hook it and the net breaks..Fail #1. The seagulls begin to come from all directions and proceed to annoy the hell out of us and because of us! we decide to pick up and set up elsewhere. We reel in the bait..reel, reel, yet our balloons seem to not get any closer and somehow appear to be getting further out, realizing, we didnt tie the balloons to line hard enough, Fail #2. We move, setup again, this time chum bag secured, balloons on tight.

The sharks show up about 1 hour and 15 min later, but no bites.. and so we wait, another 45min-1Hr , A BITE! my buddy grabs rod, goes to set and line breaks! we shake our heads and sigh, and then again when i tell him i messed with the drag settings that he had preset..lol Fail #3 As we are laughing and sighing, the shark decides to grab our 2nd bait, this time we hook up right, my buddy grabs the wheel and I begin to fight shark, 15 min later we have him port side, and the confusion begins. We dont know what we have, Mako or Blue? we quickly grab our phones, no service, dang! we check paperwork, nothing..we think back at our research and cant decide, cant get a clear distinction! after several runs and debate..we cut the line.

We fish for hours, see the sharks but no other bites, so we head into marina, Surfside Marina. On the way in we decide to look at pictures and the realization sinks in..O M G we may have released a Mako instead of the Blue Shark we thought! NO NO NO Possible MAJOR Fail #4 We ask some anglers at the marina and get Blue, Mako, Blue, Mako..

Even though we had a great, funny and epic day, we could have a record fail on our hands and this is why im writing this story, as entertainment and to clarify.. so i ask you all who have read this long post! help us identify our shark !!!