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Australian 10'2" land based Bull Shark

Team Big Dog
(@team-big-dog)
Trusted Member

Here's the full report and photos. Please let me know if there's an issue with them coming through. Cheers.

10'2" Australian bullshark full report

When we planned our woodgate beach trip, it was figured that would be our last trip for the year due to how long it can take to acquire necessary bait and rig traces for such a trip. However, driving home from woodgate, after our success with a solid tiger and lemon shark, motivation was running high and it left us all wanting more.

Dwelling upon the thought of doing one last trip for the year, I contemplated and eventually decided to proceed with a very last minute and hasty overnight trip to moreton Island (a large sand island off our coastline) Phone calls were made, plans were arranged, schedules reorganised and within an hour one last night on the beach was planned for the team.

We all arrived at my house around 6am Tuesday morning, and made the just over an hour long drive to Redcliffe, where we met up with our guest for the trip, my dad.

The boat was loaded up, and a big breakkie was in order before the 5 of us launched the boat and made the 40 minute trip across the bay to moreton island.
Rods were quickly assembled, heavy 4mm plastic coated 49strand traces consisting of 24/0 circles and 18/0 7669s mustad seamasters were rigged up to each respective rod. We were all running healthy sized freshwater eels for bait this trip, after an awesome eeling session a few nights previously.

Sandbags were filled, tied off and baits were deployed. Let me tell you, it was such a breeze running baits off the inside of moreton island with the comfort of the tinny and no surf to contend with, especially with many hands to help out! (Almost 99% of our coastline has treacherous surf making land based shark fishing impossible)

Just on nightfall James's 80w went slack, which we reeled in to find had been ripped to shreds. While we were busy examining James's bait, with the last few rays of the sun poking over the horizon, Jyes 130 Santiago made a slow but steady run, then stopped. We quickly helped harness him up while he prepared to set the hook. We waited what felt like an eternity before it started spooling off the line at a much faster rate! Drags were set, hooks were engaged and we were on!!

The shark really put some pressure on the 130 in the early stages of the fight, so the drag was slowly increased to just below full. After approximately 15 minutes of the shark making powerful and blistering runs, the shark started to mellow and Jye began the long process of pumping and winding in the unknown beast. This stage lasted approximately 20 odd minutes untill we had the shark approaching the shore break, just out of sight.

Now this is when the shark really started to come to life. Swimming horizontally to the beach, it just remained out of sight for a while before sprinting roughly 80m out, to be wound in again repeatedly. Finally an opportunity to secure the tailrope was presented and me and James grabbed it with both hands! The bullshark was pulled up, measured 10'2" to the tail with a fork length of 260cm. Hooks were removed and I walked the shark out to waist depth water, where she swum off perfectly! Couldn't ask for a better release!

The rest of the night was relatively quite, apart from small sharks diminishing our bait stocks until we ran out.

All in all, we couldn't have asked for anything better off a last minute trip!

Go pro footage is up on YouTube now to view

Till next time, screaming reels!
Max and the TBDsharkfishing team!Below the Youtube Video and pics,thanks for watching

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Topic starter Posted : 02/12/2015 3:12 pm
william
(@william)
Member Admin

Damn!! That's a massive bull shark ,,probably one of the top five biggest Bull Sharks ever caught land-based AnYwhere on the planet.Congratulations and thanks for sharing it with us.

SOUTH FLORIDA SHARK CLUB -President SFSC-Founding Member est 1983 SFSC-Website Administrator BIG HAMMER SHARK TOURNAMENT -Founder Rene Memorial Sharkathon -Founder NMFS Shark Tagger

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Posted : 02/12/2015 3:39 pm
seaweed the khahuna
(@seaweed-the-khahuna)
Honorable Member

Omg that beach is prime for a 15 ft hammer or a giant great white!! Any great whites in that area? How deep is it were you drop your baits?

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Posted : 02/14/2015 6:40 pm
oncebitten
(@oncebitten)
Eminent Member

Awesome Bull Shark, congratulations to you all :D

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Posted : 02/14/2015 6:59 pm
Team Big Dog
(@team-big-dog)
Trusted Member

Omg that beach is prime for a 15 ft hammer or a giant great white!! Any great whites in that area? How deep is it were you drop your baits?

This spot in particular was passed onto me by quite a well known sharker, it's almost an exclusive large (9ft up) bullshark spot. Whites have been spotted off the island, only one tiger that I'm aware of has been caught off the beach. Baits were dropped in 12-20 meters depth approximately 60-120m off the beach. As for 15ft hammer hopefully! But unfortuantely for us hammers are extremely rare. Which Is why I'm planning a Florida trip sometime this year, to finally land a decent land based hammer!

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Topic starter Posted : 02/15/2015 1:48 am
seaweed the khahuna
(@seaweed-the-khahuna)
Honorable Member

Wow !!! Where in Australiacanyou take me to targetGreat Whites and giant tigers?

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Posted : 02/16/2015 10:34 am
Team Big Dog
(@team-big-dog)
Trusted Member

Wow !!! Where in Australiacanyou take me to targetGreat Whites and giant tigers?

Fraser Island in summer for tigers, winter for whites, would be the best bet

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Topic starter Posted : 02/18/2015 4:30 am
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