This is one of our pinnancle gamefish in our waters. Why? Because they get really big and we don't eat them. They are simply awesome to catch and fight.
Plus, they realy are beautiful fish. Their colors are so vivid. Don't buy that "they don't fight" wives tale. We've caught them to more than 400 pounds, and at that
size there is not quick way to reel them in. What a battle.
We fish for them south of Cape Cod starting in June, and north of Cape Cod starting in mid-July. While I feel that there is more shark action south of Cape Cod, while fishing
for cod east of Stellwagen Bank we have the added bonus of also fishing for cod while we wait for the sharks to arrive. We caught our largest shark while codfishing east of Stellwagen in
2007. We've had 20+ shark days south of Martha's Vineyard and East of Stellwagen. We've had times while fishing for cod
east of Stellwagen where I could almost guarantee that we'd get a blue shark "by accident"! We often fish with one or two
lines in the water specifically for sharks while we fish for cod and haddock. It's a great bonus!
With blue sharks, they will often circle the boat and come directly into the chumslick from below--this is amazing to see, as they just appear and throw a lot of excitement into the
mix very quickly. We do our best to release all blue sharks as safely as possible(safely for them and US). We've had several times
in which we've been able to look into the water and see 6-10 blue sharks circling our chum slick, coming up to the boat
and biting onto our chum block. It's very cool. At that time, you can almost choose which fish you want to battle.