jjcollins
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 26, 1999
- Messages
- 1,394
ISLAMORADA, Fla. - A muscle-burning seven-hour battle with a 650-pound, 11-foot mako shark ended when the prize catch was pulled aboard in the pitch blackness of the Atlantic on Monday night offshore Islamorada in the Florida Keys.
Angler Kevin Valentine, a 39-year-old construction worker from Clifton, N.J. on a four-day fishing vacation, said he never experienced anything more strenuous in his life.
Valentine, and friend John Cinek, also from Clifton, N.J., were aboard the charter boat StrikeFighter, owned by veteran Islamorada charter boat captain Rich Hellmuth.
``I've been chartering since 1974, and I've never seen anything like this in all my years of fishing,'' said Hellmuth, who operates his charter business out of the Lor-e-lei, an Islamorada restaurant and waterfront bar famous for its sunsets.
Word spread through the upper Keys late Monday afternoon that a boat was fighting a huge shark offshore Islamorada, known as the Sportfishing Capital of the World.
It wasn't until 11:15 p.m. that the StrikeFighter reached the Lor-e-lei docks with the shark spread across the cockpit. Despite the late hour, a crowd of about 150 came to see the catch.
It took 12 men to pull the mako onto the dock.
jj...........
Angler Kevin Valentine, a 39-year-old construction worker from Clifton, N.J. on a four-day fishing vacation, said he never experienced anything more strenuous in his life.
Valentine, and friend John Cinek, also from Clifton, N.J., were aboard the charter boat StrikeFighter, owned by veteran Islamorada charter boat captain Rich Hellmuth.
``I've been chartering since 1974, and I've never seen anything like this in all my years of fishing,'' said Hellmuth, who operates his charter business out of the Lor-e-lei, an Islamorada restaurant and waterfront bar famous for its sunsets.
Word spread through the upper Keys late Monday afternoon that a boat was fighting a huge shark offshore Islamorada, known as the Sportfishing Capital of the World.
It wasn't until 11:15 p.m. that the StrikeFighter reached the Lor-e-lei docks with the shark spread across the cockpit. Despite the late hour, a crowd of about 150 came to see the catch.
It took 12 men to pull the mako onto the dock.
jj...........
