Flyfishing in saltwater in the UK is no longer seen as something unusual. However, the normal species targetted would be bass, mackeral and mullet. On a recent trip with Andrew Allsop on his amazing boat Whitewater 4, I decided to have a go at blue shark - a really serious adversary on a fly rod. I fished with Andrew last year and my group caught blue shark up to 185lbs in weight.
Nick with a superb 165lb blue
Ten minutes after putting the baits out my brother was playing a magnificent blue of around 120lbs in weight. This was quickly followed by an awesome 165lb fish that fought all the way to the boat leaving Nick battered.
Before long we had all caught a shark on a bait and it was time to try a little fly fishing. This is really new territory for a UK saltwater flyfisher. I opted for a 12wt Sage saltwater flyrod, a Lamson Vanquish 12 reel and a Teeny 450 saltwater line. I spent a lot of time getting the reel rigged to stand maximum strain. As it turned out this was time well spent.
12wt fly rod at full stretch
After half an hour or so I had a very delicate take - after a firm strip strike it soon became obvious I had hooked a decent fish. The next half an hour was certainly action packed. Initially the shark certainly had no idea it was hooked - it was not until I really cranked the drag up on the reel that it had any idea something was wrong. Forty minutes later and at the sixth attempt Andrew was able to get the shark through the trap door and into the boat. It was quickly unhooked, photographed and measured then returned - swimming off strongly. An quick calculation gave Andrew the weight - 93.5 lbs.
93lb blue on a fly!!
It then occured to me that this was probably the biggest fish ever caught on a flyrod in the uk.
Many thanks to Andrew for all his help - you can contact him at www.whitewatercharters.co.uk.
Great fishing, what a buzz!
What leader and tippet did you use? I assume there’s some wire involved somewhere and a requirement for heavy mono to resist abrading on the shark’s skin.
Hi Nick
I use about 3′ of 300lb b/s wire with an 8′ rubbing leader made from 250lb b/s mono. The skin on a shark is very abrasive so the leader needs to resist this for as long as possible. It is common for blues to wrap themselves in the leader during play so the leader needs to be long enough too. Happy sharking and regards - Allan