This article below may be appearing in the PYC newsletter, so I am printing it here as well. I need some pictures from the crew members, so send them over!
On Thursday evening, June 14th, the Small Fortune sailed from Pequonnock Yacht Club in New Haven towards Montauk, NY to participate in the 26th Annual Star Island Shark Tournament. The Shark Tournament at Star Island is one of the biggest shark tournaments in the world, with prize purses regularly topping a half of a million dollars. This year’s tournament is the seventh in a row in which the Small Fortune has participated. With Capt. Steve Small at the helm, and a mixed crew of veteran angler/deckhands and newbies, we were greeted with beautiful weather to cross Long Island Sound, through Plum Gut and on towards Lake Montauk. When we arrived, we joined the gathering of 156 boats and approximately 1,000 anglers, all dreaming of the prize Mako or Thresher Shark that would bring glory, an impressive trophy, and a lot of cold, hard cash.
The format of the 2-day tournament is a shotgun 6am start, fish wherever you’d like, and be back at the docks by 6pm on Friday for day 1, and 5pm on Saturday for day 2. On Friday (day 1), the Small Fortune decided to head straight to the grounds where we landed last year’s 2nd Prize Mako Shark. The location, above an underground hump rising from about 180 ft of water, was approximately an hour and a half ride from the Marina. When we arrived, we loaded the first block of frozen Menhaden chum into the chum bucket and started a power slick. This is a technique used to start the scent trail leading up to the boat whereby we slowly bump along for a few minutes with chum being released into the water. Once satisfied with the power slick, we kill the engines and start our drift. We position baits consisting of Bluefish, Menhaden, and Mackerel at various depths to cover the water column, all the while continuing to expand on our chum slick in order to attract sharks from miles around.
It only took about 45 minutes to have the first shark take a bait, starting the action for the day that would prove NON-STOP. The first shark was a Blue Shark of about 100-125 lbs. Blue Sharks are abundant in the waters surrounding Montauk, and while fun to catch, are typically not big enough to win significant money, and its meat carries very little table value compared to the tasty Mako and Thresher Sharks. All Blue Sharks that are caught aboard the Small Fortune are released. The only instance where one would be brought to the docks would be if it qualified for the tournament. The minimum weight for a Blue Shark to qualify is 225 lbs. This equates to a shark longer than 10 feet in length. During day 1, we lost count of the number of Blue Sharks we caught, but the number was certainly above 20. We went back to the docks with tired arms due to each of us catching several sharks up to 200 lbs, but we didn’t have shark to weigh in front of the large crowd of spectators back at Star Island. The day was fantastic however, with several anglers catching their largest fish of their lives, and other exciting moments like when a school of porpoises came to take a bite of the Mackerel we had on hand.
Day 2, we decided to try a different location, further east than we’ve typically fished for sharks in the past. Almost immediately, we were greeted by the Blue Sharks once again. Being amongst several Blue Sharks is a common curse for Montauk shark fisherman, but is a blessing for anglers not concerned with high money tournament entry fees. Within one hour’s ride from Montauk, we again caught double digit numbers of sharks. This fishery is extremely reliable and poses a great opportunity for anglers that have never tangled with a fish larger than Long Island Sound’s Bluefish and Striped Bass. Strapping into a 200 lb Blue Shark is almost a guarantee, proven by the fact that the Small Fortune has never gone sharking without catching Blue Sharks. But, alas, the second day of the tournament passed us by and we had no prize winner come to the boat this year.
One year after catching a prize winning Mako Shark, the Small Fortune finished the tournament with nothing but Blue Shark releases. The Thresher Shark still eludes our 55’ Ocean, but there is always next year. The final results of the tournament included a 422 lb Thresher Shark, a 344 lb Mako Shark, and a surprise qualifying 237 lb Blue Shark (which represented the first qualifying Blue Shark to be weighed in several years). In total, there were 47 fish weighed in this year, many of which provided shark meat for local charities. While we didn’t come home with a trophy or any cold, hard cash, we still had our Small Fortune.
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