Shark Challenge results in victory and rare catches
More than 25 shark were caught, video taped, released and shown on a jumbo-tron video wall to waiting crowds at Shark Fest 2010 and the Are You Man Enough Shark Challenge 4 during the weekend of June 19-20, off of Fort Myers Beach.
During Sunday’s inaugural sudden death challenge, which pitted the top five teams from Saturday’s action, Team Big Snook dot com went on to catch a 5-foot bull shark, 6.5-foot bull shark then a 5-foot blacktip shark for 16.5 feet in aggregate at 2:07 p.m. to take the top prize. Team Navionics led by Captiva Charter Capt. Ozzie Fischer finished second amassing 12 feet of shark with a shark on the line when the competition stopped. It appeared to be a fitting end to an exciting weekend of big game angling shared by thousands.
During the tournament, something unexpected happened. Not one, but two rare sawfish were caught, and released while the video played to a cheering crowd.
When Capt. Jack Donlon developed his idea for this new format of big game tournament fishing that would enable crowds on shore to watch a stadium-sized screen displaying the shark catches (and releases) as they happened during a shark fishing tournament, he knew it would be exciting for the crowd, good for the tournament and good for the shark.
What he didn’t realize was the possibility of a seldom seen and less seldom documented catch and release of a rare fish to be shown to the spectators. When the anglers on Team Bobby B hooked and brought what turned out to be a sawfish boat side they followed all the rules of the tournament, sent the video to the production crew at Shark Fest 2010 and released the fish. Within seconds the video of the sawfish was up on the big screen. The crowds were amazed to see the close-up shots, but was this a shark that earned points in the tournament? Was this even a shark?
After explanation determined a sawfish is more of a ray than a shark, the catch did not count for points in the tournament. By popular demand, the video was replayed over and over to different crowds all day. There was a lot of talk about sawfish, shark and their importance to us and the breakthrough in big game tournament fishing this event demonstrated.
On Sunday, with the memory of Team Bobby B’s catch still fresh in their minds, the finalists in the Are You Man Enough Shark Challenge 4 headed out with one goal to be the first team to catch an aggregate of 15 feet of shark and win the first ever sudden death shark competition. Afternoon came quick, the catch was steady and video streamed live back to the tournament just as it did Saturday. Then, another sawfish catch was played on the screen. This time the crowd was anxious to see what the team claimed to be a 16-foot sawfish.
At Sunday’s awards banquet, Jack Donlon announced that he is in final talks with four tournament directors to partner up and run simultaneous tournaments where anglers from around the world, as far way as New Zealand, will compete head to head utilizing the video methods and technology they proved here in the Fort Myers Beach competition for the first ever “World-wide Shark Challenge.” Visit www.AreYouManEnoughSharkChallenge.com for details as announced.
-submitted by Capt. Jack Donlon