Giant fish measured 13 feet long, weighed 550 pounds, Marvel said
After an epic day of fishing Monday on the East Lump, Capt. Peace Marvel’s 31-foot AmeraCat returned to Cypress Cove Marina in Venice almost 800 pounds heavier than when it left seven hours earlier — thanks to two stud yellowfin tuna and a huge shark that potentially could become the new No. 4 mako ever caught in Louisiana waters.
The tuna bite started fast and furious that morning for Marvel’s two-man charter: Lynn Davis of Wisconsin and Merrill May of Texas had to get to work quickly when they arrived out on the fishing grounds.
“They had never caught triple-digit yellowfins, so with the first two baits in the water we hooked a pair of 120-pound yellowfin,” said Marvel, with PeaceKeeper Charters. “After which point, they wanted to rest for a little while.”
So Marvel motored over to the southeast edge of The Hump in about 250 feet of water, and started chumming to see what might come up. Just the day before, he had caught a 225-pound mako in the same area.
“Sure enough, a big mako came up and swam around the boat,” Marvel said. “We kept chumming, and I put another rig out for him… He eventually came out from underneath the boat and snagged a piece of king mackerel.
“We saw the strike right next to the boat. It was awesome.”
Initially, the giant shark didn’t realize the piece of king mackerel had a Mustad 7691 straight hook embedded inside it, with Davis on the rod.
“At first, he kind of swam around the boat and didn’t realize he was hooked,” Marvel said. “He was still eating other chum and kind of lounging around. After that, he realized some pressure was on him, and ran out at about 60 mph and jumped 15 feet in the air three times in a row.
“Then he dove and we chased him down. I chased him about a mile — he was rolling.”
The battle ensued for about 70 minutes, and Marvel and first mate Logan Mitchell finally got the big shark alongside the boat.
“Had things gone differently, that fish could have fought for hours upon hours,” Marvel said. “But I paced him with the boat and got right next to him, and I made a reach of a gaff shot and stuck him through the gills and up under the center of his back with the flying gaff. He jumped again and broke the line, but it was too late — he was already on the gaff.”
They gaffed the shark again and secured a tail rope, and Marvel dispatched it — the old-fashioned way.
“I drove a 9-inch Dexter Russell in between his eyes about 7 inches,” he said. “Then we tied his tail off and drug him backwards for about a mile just to make sure he was dead — because there are plenty of things you don’t want in your boat, but on that list a 550-pound live mako would certainly be included.”
That’s when the real fun began — trying to load the 13-foot-plus beast into the boat.
“It took about an hour and a half to land him,” Marvel said with a chuckle. “But it took over two hours to get him in the boat. Getting it in the boat was way harder than catching it.”
Eventually, with the help of a Come-Along and everyone onboard, they ratcheted the shark’s head into the engine well and finally pulled its tail and successfully flopped it into the AmeraCat.
“We headed directly in because we didn’t want the meat to spoil,” Marvel said. “We covered him in ice bags and put beanbags on top of him.”
They arrived back at Cypress Cove about 2 p.m., where the big mako tipped the scales at exactly 550 pounds. It measured 13 feet, 2 inches long, with a girth of 47 inches — and provided lots of mako steaks.
“Most sharks have a distinct skanky smell because they urinate through their skin,” Marvel said. “The reason a mako shark is so good to eat is because they have a bladder and don’t urinate through their skin.”
If certified by the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association, the big shark will become the state’s new No. 4-ranked mako, supplanting a 412-pounder taken almost 36 years ago by Carroll Goulas out of South Pass.
If a mako is what you’re looking for, now is the prime time to make it happen, Marvel said.
“I’ve caught mako here and there pretty much every month the year, but if you really want a big mako, wintertime is the only time you can target them,” said Marvel, noting the 550-pounder was the largest ever landed on his boat. “The other ones I’ve caught have just been incidental.”
