Not long before Jaws came out, my brothers,father and I were out trolling for marlin out of Mission Bay, San Diego. I hooked into what I hoped was a marlin, but after one long fight, it was a 12 foot great white. I wa using a 6/0 Penn reel with heavy line.
The transom of my father’s boat is just over 12 feet and it was the full width of it. While it had hit on a brand new and somewhat expensive lure, none of us wanted to get close to it. I was able to finally pull the lure out and it swam off.
I was bummed that I spent so much time and effort for what I had hoped was a marlin. The good news was that it didn’t have the attributes of Jaws.
Though we were fishing for shark, the 6’ mako I caught was luck. Four friends and I were fishing off the coast of Huntington Beach and at one point we noticed our boat was being circled by a shark. It just happened that at that time I was the only one with my line out of the water and I had just baited with a fresh anchovy. I cast the anchovy just in front of the circling shark and it took it. Aside from a sand shark caught in the surf it was the only other shark I have ever caught.
Hey, all you have to do is flip a great white over and rub its belly. It good into a trance-like state. Problem solved.