Saltwater Fish of the week

[tubeN2]

BLUE SHARK Prionace glauca.
This shark is also called bluedog, great blue shark, and blue whaler, the last because of its habit of trailing whaling ships and feeding off of whale carcasses and ship garbage. A member of the requiem shark family, the blue shark is very slender and streamlined, with a long and pointed snout which is much longer than the width of its mouth. Appropriately, it is a deep, brilliant blue or a dark cobalt to indigo blue above, fading gradually to white below. With up to three rows of functional teeth in each jaw, the larger teeth in the upper jaw are "saber-shaped," or broadly convex on one side and concave on the other; the teeth are serrated along the edges and those in the lower jaw are narrower.

Circumglobal in temperate and tropical waters, blue sharks hardly rate as fighters in comparison to makos and threshers, but they are much more abundant and provide fine sport on appropriate tackle in cooler temperate waters off the northeastern U.S., England, and California, where there are large sportfisheries for them. They usually swim slowly, and yet they can be one of the swiftest sharks, with the largest fish of over 400 pounds being fairly strong fighters when taken from cool waters. Viviparous, blue sharks bear live young in large litters, with up to 54 at one time (135 has been recorded); they mature at a length of 7 or 8 feet but can reach upward of 13 feet. The all-tackle world record is a 454-pound fish taken off Massachusetts in 1996. Blue sharks are potentially dangerous to humans because they are related to unprovoked attacks on both humans and boats, especially during accidents and disasters at sea when injured people are in the water.
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[JapanRon]

Hey there TubeN2,

Good choice of shark. They love southern California weather and are often a mile or so off shore. It's pretty easy to catch them and they make cattle boat angler's heart skip a beat as they fight like a yellowtail.

So here you are and you've got bendo and everyone thinks its a yellow (even the deck) that is until it is just a few meters from actual color!!

Then you know it's Mr. Blue! Pretty common catch on the cattle boats! We let them go because, sharks only have a few pups every year and you can't fish them like FISH!!!

Please release them! They tend to gather in a group so the impression is that there a lot of them but that is NOT the case.

Herrrrrrre little sharky, bite my ... Whoa.......

JapanRon
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[tubeN2]

I love the little toothy critters myself. I used to enjoy catching Leopard and Horn sharks off the pier at Santa Monica back in the early through mid 80s. They really used to be more plentiful back then and were such good fighters.

We used to slide down some fresh mack and beef kidney dessert on sliding rigs. That used to keep them plentiful in the area. My personal best was a 6 1/2 foot Leopard. My bro came close and almost beat it once. Instead, his rod snapped and dissappeared right before his eyes into the depths of the Santa Monica Bay.
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