Unfortunately, the harpoon head came loose from the mako, but we still had it on the rod. It took off for about fifty yards, and stopped. Then, as fast as it had run off, it made a U-turn and charged the boat. The harpoon stuck, as did the flying gaff, and after a minute or so of thrashing, I gave it the coup de grace with the shotgun. Back at the dock the mako weighed in at 623 pounds, and would have easily taken the big prize in the tournaments held the weekend before or after.
Timing is everything.
Two weeks later, same place, except this day was greasy calm, the type of day that makes for pretty poor shark fishing, due to the lack of drift. Again, I was using the same setup, with the live bait close to the boat. As expected, things were slow, and after two hours, we still hadn t had a bite. Suddenly the float with the live bait went down and took off, fast, so fast in fact that it nearly backlashed. Fortunately, the conditions were with us, because without backing down hard, this fish would have been history in a matter of minutes.