Land Based Shark rods, reels and Tackle.

Started by Shark Hunter, September 28, 2013, 09:00:37 PM

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Dynamo

Floating Doc, you probably caught a monster rough tail. Those things are enormous......

floating doc

I'm not familiar with the various species, so l did a search. The Wiki page says they get up to 8 1/2 feet in diameter (it was all of that) and 660 lbs. I'm sure it couldn't have been nearly that heavy since I was able to get it to the surface. 

I was using an 8 1/2 foot slow action tarpon rod rated for 50 lb, a penn 990 with dry HT 100's and 25 Berkley Big Game.  That line overtests at about 40 lbs and I tie off to my swivel with a bimini. Pretty stout outfit, but nothing that would lift a 500+ lb ray off the bottom.

I built the rod, so l know it was splined properly,  but it still kept trying to turn over.
Central Florida

Bunnlevel Sharker

#32
I've seen hammers caught, and all you need is plenty of line and drag and to be lucky. With a ray, you had to stop his run like a hammer, then break him off the bottom
Grayson Lanier

CapeFish

For our fishing situation:
Good casting reel, needs to be able to hold about 700m of line (500m 50lb braid backing and 200m 0.55mm mono with a 9-10m 1mm or thicker nylon leader, when using a slide add 1m steel cable to leader before stop ring)
Strong, solid, smooth drag.
Reel must be able to withstand wading.
Rod - 12-14ft rod with big, very strong guides to handle knots, must be able to cast weights of at least 15 oz (bait and sinker), reel must be at bottom. We have locally manufactured rods and some imports that meet this criteria.

This is for the Cape Town area, the only big sharks we get are bronze whalers and ragged tooths and they don't often go over 200kg, so a Torium 30 is a good reel to use, or if you want more insurance then something like a Trinidad 40 or 50 or a Fin Nor OFC 30, they take lots more line. The new trinidad A unfortunately has limited line capacity due to the frame being so close to the spool. If you fill it to the brim it can't take a thick leader. Some of the lever drags such as the Saltiga, Saltist, Talica are becoming popular. A few people are also trying out Avets, but the price had me choking badly. We get massive great whites here but we are not allowed to catch them. The big black sting rays get well over 200kg but they usually don't take much line and if they go sit down you can usually forget about getting them out. You have to pull like crazy to keep them from going down.

Other places you can fish with kite rigs or swim massive live skates out for which big boat style tackle can be used. Not my cup of tea though.

Dynamo

Nice, Capefish! I've heard about the South African way of sharking. Interesting how there are different cultures of sharking. The traditional bridge and palm beach style Floridian, the texan mousetrap, and the new Sharks on the sand avet and circle hook craze, which evolved from Texas shark fishing. Also the South African style. Aussies use short tods with senators off piers and beach. I wonder if they ever lose fish that go under the pilings......By the way, Bunnlevel, When I'm referring to Hammers i am mostly talking about Greaters, they are an entirely different fish and are very powerful. I think you are referring to the scalloped caught with a TRX 50? I think I remember that report......Big hammers are very powerful and it often with the largest specimens doesn't matter how drag you use, they will burn line off anyways.......

Bunnlevel Sharker

Nope that was a greater actually, and ask Tunastick on sharks on the sand about monster rays
Grayson Lanier

Dynamo

Ah, it was? Cool, pretty rare to have a NC Greater off a pier. Still their is a big difference between an eight to nine footer, and the granders that terrorize the tarpon down south. Another 6 inches can make a huge difference........I'm not actually on SOS, maybe I'll log in sometime........

cmaraj1

any one using a diawa 600h or 900h reels for sharking?

floating doc

I'm going to be using my 900H in May if I get my PTO approved. I just got it back from Bryan with a drag and handle upgrade. I'll be using 80 mono over about 100 feet of 80 dacron backing.

I'll fish it side by side with a 115L with the new one piece half frame.
Central Florida

Shark Hunter

#39
I hope you get approved Doc. I'm bringing a team with me to Git-R-Done! :P
Its only two months away! ;D
Life is Good!

Makule

Agree with Shark Hunter on all points.  In Hawaii, with very large sharks (I mean like 12'+) the rod usually doesn't come out of the holder (which is wedged in solid rock) because we mainly can't stop the initial run, even with a 12/0.  If the initial run can be stopped, then it's likely not very large.  Our leaders are mono to the hook so that sharks will break off after a while.  We don't like to catch sharks.
I used to be in a constant state of improvement.  Now I'm in a constant state of renovation.

LucasGeneau

Hi, here in argentina people uses large senators like 6/0 to 12/0  and also use giant full metal old school spinning reels a lot spolled up with mono, they use custom made 8 foot rods 50/80 class of fiber glass   without roller guides. Then rigs, way of fishing is pretty much like south african style!
http://www.pescaenkayak.com/foro/uploads/images/procaster/san_blas_gaby_en_bungalow.jpg