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Shortfin mako-Isurus oxyrinchus |
There is nothing in the ocean that can be compared to the shortfin mako. There are plenty of mako disaster stories from around the world; including wrecked cockpits and injuries to anglers. Some mako fiasco stories will never be told, because the embarrassed anglers got their reputations and asses kicked. We have some of the largest makos in the world right here in New England. This is a photo of one, 20' in the air on the east side of Stellwagen Bank. |
There are two species of mako. The other mako species, the longfin, Isurus paucus, is not in our coastal New England waters. The longfin mako is found farther offshore in the Canyons and on down toward the Caribbean. It stays well offshore, and they are not as plentiful as the shortfin, Isurus oxyrinchus. The longfin mako, Isurus paucus can be differentiated from the shortfin by its long swept back pectoral fins-hence its common name, “longfin”. Otherwise the teeth, and the body appearance are just like a shortfin. When anglers use the word mako, they are in almost every case referring to the shortfin mako, Isurus oxyrinchus. The longfin mako, Isurus paucus is a protected species, and is rarely encountered by anglers |
IGFA Record - 1,221 lbs. set here in Massachusetts .....Massachusetts State record - 1,324 lbs. |
Info on the shortfin mako, Isurus oxyrinchus Females: 12-1/2 foot fork length -Max weight - 1,700 lbs. Males: 9 foot fork length - The heaviest male mako that I know of weighed 624 lbs. Mid 60 deg. water is considered ideal for makos, larger makos can tolerate water in the low 50s. Snout is pointed. - Eyes are solid black - Lower tail is 80- 90% as long as upper tail. Body is streamlined, with a dark bluish black back and a snow white bottom. Body section going into tail is bulged out and flattened. Second dorsal is very small and slightly ahead of anal fin. |
The longfin has a dark area under the lower jaw, and the area from the upper jaw to the snout will also be dark. The shortfin mako, will have white in those areas above and below the mouth, and will have shorter pectoral fins. |
Typical mako teeth are smooth edged, and dagger like. Exceptionally large makos, have teeth more wedge shaped. The left photo shows typical mako front lower jaw teeth. The right photo is a mako well over a thousand pounds. The teeth in very large makos are shaped somewhat similar to those of a white shark. A white's teeth will have serrations, a mako's will not.. |
IGFA World Record mako caught in Massachusetts |
The present IGFA world record for the heaviest shortfin mako is 1,221 lbs. That world record wasn’t set in Australia or some other far away exotic world location; it was caught here in New England - more specifically off Chatham Mass. on July 21, 2001. Capt Chris Peters, angler Luke Sweeney, and crewmen Doug Abdelnour and Dave Gaffey caught it during the Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament-which requires participants to follow IGFA rules. They were fishing in a 24-foot World Cat, the smallest boat in the tournament. It was a hectic 3-hour battle with the mako splashing water into the boat when it jumped and landed close alongside. The record size mako freed itself from a fly-gaff midway in the fight and continuing to battle for over an hour longer until subdued. It was towed back to the weigh-in scales. After that record mako catch, Capt. Peters “got a bigger boat.” His 24-foot Dazed and Confused was replaced with a 35 footer. |
On July 27, 1999, Capt. Kevin Scola on the left, and angler Billy Silvia on the "Survival", took on rod and reel, a 1,324 lb. mako in Mass. Bay at Stellwagen Bank. They brought the mako into their homeport Green Harbor, Marshfield Mass. It was weighed the following day. I saw the fish intact, and it was enormous. It was 11 foot 2 inches to the fork and 96 inches in girth. It did not qualify as an IGFA record, because the fish was fought out of the rod holder. This 1,324 pounder is a new Massachusetts State rod and reel record. Photo - Belsan's Bait and Tackle, Scituate Mass. |
Largest rod and reel mako in the world. |
The photo on the left is a scanned local newspaper photo from the Old Colony Memorial newspaper. On July 8, 1997, Capt. Tom O’Reilly and Paul Herbert left Plymouth, Mass. on the Karen M heading for Stellwagen Bank for some tuna fishing. Before reaching Stellwagen they encountered a group of giant tuna about 13 miles out. They followed the tuna, and harpooned the largest shape in the group. It wasn’t a tuna! It was an enormous mako swimming right along with the tuna. Who would have expected that? The mako was not bothered by the electrical jolt which would kill a tuna instantly. The mako jumped out of the water, and a battle on the 1,200- foot handline ensued. There were only two people onboard, and to handline this big mako, and maneuver the boat at the same time would be quite a tiring, and a time-consuming task. |
They needed some assistance. Help arrived when Andy Glynn came over on the Ridla and joined them in fighting the mako. When the mako was subdued, it was gutted. Even then, it was too heavy for the hoisting gear to lift it onboard. This mako was a lot heavier than the thousand pound giant tuna that the boat is equipped to handle. Using 2 boats and 8 men they managed to get the mako onboard. In typical unpredictable fashion, the gigantic mako began thrashing around in the cockpit. Not an unusual mako occurrence. It will turn out to be one of the largest makos ever taken anywhere in the world, by any means. The mako was brought into Brewers Marina in Plymouth, Mass. It was weighed on a crane scale; it weighed in at 1,530 lbs. This was after it had been gutted. Intact you would expect this mako would have weighed 1,700 lbs. or possibly more. |
Enormous mako harpooned in Mass. Bay |
The mako took the bait, and initially it swam off like a big blue shark-slow and powerful. Taylor did a great job as angler. I explained that since we were using a conventional wire shark rig, and not a wind on leader, that we couldn’t get the mako within 15 feet of the rod tip, because the wire section would not come through the rod tip - also, it would be too dangerous to ask the charter to wire up the mako or try to harpoon it. I had the two children get out of the cockpit and stay forward since makos can and do jump into cockpits. I have had lot of experience with makos; and we had no wireman, so when Taylor brought the shark in as close as he could, I had Taylor put the rod in the forward holder and grab the harpoon while I swung the boat to get the mako within harpoon range off the stern - with the mako’s head pointing away from us. I told Taylor to stick it behind the dorsal toward the tail. This greatly reduces the problem of the mako jumping into the cockpit. Also they come back tail first on the handline and are easier to tail wrap. Taylor made a perfect throw and got the harpoon dart into the rear section of the mako. (Good job Taylor.) The enraged mako bolted away from the boat, peeling line off the rod and reel in the rod holder and taking all the harpoon dart line, and the attached ball, right out of the cockpit. The ball bounced along the water and went under. Taylor resumed fighting the mako on the rod, but later on, the snap swivel from the mono running line to the wire leader broke. Now we had to find the ball and handline the mako. Those balls look big in the cockpit, but look much smaller when being towed along in the ocean. |
What happened to that tuna? A mako happened! |
Here is the story on the photo I captain several boats out of the Mill Wharf Marina in Scituate, Mass. On Thursday August 27th, 2009, I was captaining a 30 foot Grady White, with Capt. Taylor Sears as the mate, and Bob and Pam Mayo from Dartmouth Mass, and their two children, Elizabeth and Ian Mayo, 10 and 12 years old, as the charter. We left Scituate harbor and went fishing for bluefin tuna near the SW Corner of Stellwagen Bank, about 17 miles away. Mid morning we hooked a tuna. Bob Mayo had been fighting it for about 40 minutes when the tuna surfaced close to the boat-and we all saw a mako attack it. The result is the mako took the back section off the tuna. (photo rt.) I always have a shark rig handy, and we put out the wire shark rig, baited with a piece of the mutilated tuna. The charter agreed to let the mate Taylor be the angler. |
longfin mako Isurus paucus |
The durability of a mako. Michael Pratt and Jeffrey Blackman, well known tuna fishermen out of Green Harbor, Mass. were tuna fishing on Stellwagen Bank in mid August, 2007. They were using rod and reel, and a live bluefish for tuna bait. They took a mako that after being gutted, weighed-in over 800 lbs. This catch in itself is interesting because of the large size of the mako, but what happened after the catch is interesting too. They gutted the mako in the water, and left it alongside the boat. Removing any mako’s insides and liver is fatal to the mako, but unlike other earthly creatures, not immediately fatal. Makos die on their terms, not ours. After lying alongside the boat for 45 minutes, the mako was brought onboard. Fifteen minutes later, this gutted and presumed dead mako went berserk in the cockpit. It clamped down on the gunnel with its teeth, and started ripping it up; breaking its teeth in the process. This 800 lb+ mako got its body to snap bounce up 6 feet in the air and slam down on the deck sending shudders through the boat. Because the mako was so large, it spanned the cockpit, gunnel to gunnel, and on the other side of the boat, with a violent tail swipe, the mako knocked a fairly new Shimano Tiagra 130 rod and reel out of the rod holder, sent it high up in the air and overboard - a $2,000 rod and reel gone in a matter of seconds. Mike hit the Man Overboard Button on the GPS, to mark the location of the lost gear. The next day, they returned to the lost rod and reel location, with a diver, Robert Macaleese. They had dropped a marker anchor, and Rob went down to the bottom in 110 feet of water, and recovered the rod and reel. He said it was within 15 feet of the marker anchor on the bottom. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A post script to that story: I spoke to Mike’s father, Ralph Pratt, who flies his own spotter plane out of Marshfield Massachusetts. Ralph was flying over Cape Cod Bay, and on a tip from another spotter pilot Wayne Davis, Ralph flew over an extraordinarily large mako, south of the “Fishing Ledge.” - toward the area referred to as the “Parking Lot.” Ralph called his son Michael to check it out. Mike came over in his boat, got behind and close to the cruising mako, followed it, and estimated its size. Michael said it was a lot larger than the 800+lb. mako that he had caught a few days earlier – He estimated it to be about 1,500 lbs. They let it swim off, and continued looking for tuna. Pilot Wayne Davis who saw that same mako earlier, took a photo. (see below) |
Ralph Pratt has been a spotter plane pilot for 20 years. He told me that in the last couple of years he has seen more big makos in Cape Cod Bay, Mass. Bay, at Stellwagen Bank, and at Wildcat Knoll areas than he had previously seen. |
MAKO Fork Length 10 feet . 750 lbs. 9.5 feet 620 lbs 9 feet 525 lbs. 8.5 feet 439 lbs. 8 feet . 363 lbs. 7.5 feet 297 lbs. 7 feet 239 lbs. 6.5 feet 189 lbs. 6 feet 147 lbs. Fork Length |
Biologist John Chisholm asked if it could be left intact for State and Federal biologists to dissect the next morning, because there was a lot of scientific interest in this large male mako. The charter agreed to this. The fish was iced down and left in a tuna bag overnight. The next morning, Dr. Greg Skomal and John Chisholm from the State, and other biologists, dissected it. Samples were taken and were distributed to the scientific community. The Mayo family came back and got their mako steaks as promised. Many in the crowd that gathered also got some steaks. I missed out on the steaks and the necropsy that morning, as I was back out tuna fishing . So far it is the largest documented male mako known to science. - Tom |
When I saw the male claspers I was somewhat disappointed because it would be rare for a male shortfin mako to exceed 500 lbs. (Some female makos will weigh well over a thousand pounds.) I called Mass. State shark biologist John Chisholm and told him we were bringing in a larger than usual male mako. From the Patriot Ledger newspaper: "Steve James, the president of the Boston Big Game Fishing Club, and John Chisholm, an aquatic biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, were there to take official measurements of the shark. Officially, the shark weighed 624 pounds, had a 67-inch girth, and was 9 feet, 1-1/2 inches from the head to the fork of the tail." |
When we would get close to the ball with the boat, the mako would dive and take the ball under. Eventually, when I would get the ball alongside, Taylor would get the ball back into the cockpit and get on the handline only to have the mako bolt and pull the ball overboard. This happened several times. Finally, Taylor with the help of Bob and Pam Mayo and myself were able to bring in the mako, and tail wrap it. |
Christian Valle had a similar experience to mine when a mako chopped off his tuna's tail. The mako stayed around his boat and he took these photos -tom |
RANGE OF THE SHORTFIN MAKO Isurus Oxyrinchus |
biologists dissect the mako the next morning. |