15 foot Mako

This fish was caught 2002 by My life long friend Jimmy on a long line boat off the east cost. It was dead on arrival. It was estimated at 15' and probaly 1500lbs. no measurements were taken but it was a monster. here is a pic with jimmy cutting its head off, and me holding the jaws. The jaws were left with a reputible taxidermy and they sit in the freezer for 7 years. I told jimmy to bring them to me and i would try to save them. they are starting to fall apart and are somewhat rotton. Maybe i can save them. I begged Jimmy to do them himself or let me do them but he let the dummy ruin them. Dont trust any one with ya jaws cause they will ruin them. Notice the mass of the frames, that is what shows how big it is. The gape dose not get as large as the mass as the fish gets bigger. The mass is due to bite pressure. This fish is bi-catch in other words they wanted tuna or sword and wound up with this monster. yes it is ashamed it was caught like that but comercial fishing is a fact of life. Lets all be thankfull they baned finning and imposed a quota bag limit on the comercial shark fisheries. If the rest of the world could do the same things may be alot diffrent. I tag alot of fish but i keep some, and when compared to the comercial fishries the rec fisherman isnt even a drop in the bucket. The quota is in the millions of metric tones of large costals.Not shure what a metric ton is but its alot. Lets hope our research by the tager program will help make a diffrence.