By: Rick Greene
I packed up the Oleary Buick GMC Sierra and headed for Halifax, Nova Scotia for some serious big fish. My special guests this week were Scott Jackson and Armel Daigle from Rogers TV New Brunswick and camera man Andre Arsenault. We hooked up with Captain Art Gaetan of Blue Shark Charters at 5:30 am and headed out into the Atlantic on the 42 ft. Black Pearl. A half hour into the trip out we had a whale swimming along beside us for a bit. A nice little bonus to start the day off.
The forecast was rain and some fairly stiff wind but luck was with us for this one and we didn’t get any rain and the wind was not too bad. We need some wind to get a good drift going and there is nothing Art hates worse than a flat calm day. The reason is that we are hanging a five gallon bucket of frozen fish parts off of the stern of the boat. The wind pushes the boat along and this creates a slick in the water. A Shark’s sense of smell is very acute and they pick up the scent of the slick and follow it to the boat . They come to you if you have the right drift and Captain Art has it dialed right in. Todays bait was squid and herring being used at the same time on the hook.
I asked him last year what was the fastest he ever hooked a shark after setting up his drift and he told me he got one on the first bait in the water in less than a minute. Sorry to say that we didn’t break that record, it took ten minutes for the first fish to hit. Pretty darn good if you ask me. The guys were kind enough to let me go first just in case it was a tough day. I forgot to write it down but it was around fifty inches.
Scott was up next and he got into a real fight with one on the Shimano Thunnus spinning outfit which is an absolute blast. It made some blistering runs before Scott tamed it down and I am sure he was feeling the burn in his arms before he got it boatside. Art slid the fish through the door to remove the hook and to get the fish tagged. Art is one hundred percent catch and release and only uses barbless hooks and they just slip right out. He is also a scientific platform and tags each shark and records data on them for the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. Scott’s fish measured in at a stout 73 inches and held up for big fish of the day. That being said we are pretty sure that he had a much bigger one on later in the day that just came unbuttoned. That’s fishing.
Armel got the next one, also on the spinning reel and after a wicked fight the darn thing came off. Never even got to see it in the overcast conditions. The next one to hit went to him as well so that we all got to land a fish in turn. This one made it to the boat and came in at 47 inches.
We got Andre into the next one on the Talica 25II with 100 lb test Power Pro. The line was just screaming off of the reel and that is music to an angler’s ears. It shows you the power of these fish when you consider that the drag pressure on these reels is 45 lbs.. Number four came to the boat at 63 inches.
We were hitting the fish in clusters and even had doubles on twice which is pretty amazing with the amount of water that is out there. Art definitely knows his stuff and where he needs to get set up based on the current wind conditions. Years of experience as a professional charter captain make him the man out here. He had us in and out of fish for most of the day and we boated 13 Blue Sharks and one Porbeagle. We had at least another ten come off before we could get them to the boat. An outstanding days fishing by anyones measure.
For outstanding reliability and performance, Art is equipped with the latest in Shimano Fishing Tackle, state of the art electronics and the 42 ft. Black Pearl is a dream to fish out of. If you are looking for an exotic fishing trip just a short drive from home give Blue Shark Charters a call and experience some serious salt water fishing. You can check him out on the web at www.bluesharkcharters.com
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