The Markham River Bignose Whaler by Barry Mallett
Two Bignose Whalers (Carcharhinus altimus) from Markham River on "Wild Thing"
Lester started the ball rolling by hauling up strange deepwater sharks on his handlines from the Markham and Busu river mouths. Some were juveniles and the occasional one was of a fair size.
Son, Justin, fished with Lester Rohrlach out of 'Saltshaker' several times and subsequently hit on me with his wish to catch one on IGFA tackle.
At this stage no-one knew exactly what this shark was...except for being a 'whaler'. With its huge luminescent green eyes and long, heavy, rounded snout, it defied LGFC members limited libraries. This was long before the internet and Google.
Through my UK booksellers I ordered a most expensive new book by L J V Compagno, the author of the 'FAO Sharks of the World' tome (1984) which was out of print and seemingly unobtainable. The new book was entitled 'Sharks of the Order Carcharhiniformes'.
It eventually arrived and proved to be invaluable in the provisional i.d. of the shark which matched that of Carcharhinus altimus.
Following some correspondence between myself and Compagno (South African Museum) and another man in California, Dr John McCosker (Dept of Aquatic Biology), it was apparent that the physiology of the shark and the environment it is found in, would be significant factors in making any regular captures.
It is a deepwater shark with localised territory. It is known to live in 50 fathoms to 230 fathoms of very dark water...hence the night-vision green eyes. It has to hunt mainly on impulses (electromagnetic), smell, and uses sight only on a close-up basis. Generally regarded as a stalker, it is a slow and careful shark when compared with its upper level cousins.
Thus the scheme we devised for IGFA rules capture had to include its natural food (smaller sharks, rays etc) for bait; tackle which would not produce any strange electromagnetic signals; a substance to mask all human contact and hopefully deter other species; a method which allowed deep presentation of bait; and a patient angler prepared to allow the shark to eventually swallow the bait, as opposed to it just holding on strongly.
Shark 1 - February 21st 1993.
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We chose to leave it late in the year of 1992 because their known birthing time was August to October. It wasn't until February 1993 that we found the right conditions to try for them. This was a less than normal flow out of the Markham River coupled with an early run-in tide with winds from the ESE, allowing us to fish on the drift, straight along the ancient Markham 'canyon' without any anchor, chain or rope impeding us.
(Ed. Click the thumbnail for full size pic)
It is necessary at this point to include that we had earlier anchored away from our prospective duelling site and had caught some small sharks including a couple of green-eyed ones (Centrophorus moluccensis) of about 1.5kg each.They looked ideal for a big sharks breakfast !
The first green-eye was initially intended to go down as a live bait. However, their constitutions were not crash hot after a lightning fast drag up from 60 fathoms and it went down dead ! It was rigged with two large single hooks hidden inside about halfway down and just inside the head. The hooks were kept in place by sewing through with a bait-needle and bookbinders thread. The hooks were attached to single stainless wire ( about 2.4 metres) by twisting. This wire trace was threaded through fine medical tubing (sterile, pyrogen-free) with i.d. of 2mm, and attached to the 6.3 metre 24kg Platypus double line by a solid s/s ring. No swivels were used. The bait was pricked all over with the bait-needle and a broken piece of concrete block (approx 2kg) was tied to the rig with 2kg line. The whole thing from well above the double line-join to the bait and weight block, was sprayed with squalene oil. This was previously obtained from heated green-eyed sharks livers. Squalene is used as a highly penetrative lubricant in high altitude aircraft, by NASA in their space vehicles, and also in the pharmaceutical industry. It also masks the smell of human skin secretions and by smelling of shark, hopefully puts other fish off from taking a nibble.
By this time "Wild Thing" had been quietly taken into the Markham mouth. We pointed her ESE and cut the power. As we approached the target zone we slipped the weighted bait over the side and when we felt it touch bottom a firm rod strike broke the 2kg line to the piece of concrete and we were hopefully in business. With no ratchet on, and line held between fingers, we drifted quite slowly out from the Markham.
It wasn't long before the angle of the line was different to our drift. Another 10 minutes passed and it was snaking quietly out at about 45 degrees to our stern. After approximately another 30 minutes, the line was actually moving off ahead of us !
Was the predator just holding the bait and swimming away with it, or had it swallowed the offering ?
I still had not put any pressure on it .
With the Lae main wharf now on the port side, I started to wind in the line easy-easy. Feeling a huge pressure on the line I struck as hard as possible with some 100 metres still out. There was no sudden reaction. Just this big weight still pulling us inexorably towards Lae Yacht Club !
A motor was started and I was positioned almost overhead and started to work the fish up. I must say that I probably took the best part of 45 more minutes to get some colour...didn't want to lose this one !
A large shark came up still looking half asleep. It was, in fact, still quite green, and began to play up a bit.
We had by '93 developed a very successful team technique of dealing with boatside sharks. Flo was on the wheel obeying every instruction from Justin. He expertly fly-gaffed the shark in the angle of the mouth and with the rope in one hand, he also managed to get a tail rope on with the other. The poor old shark was now ours. By motoring alongside it during all this, it had no chance to spin or mess my terminal tackle about. Definitely a lot different to any spinning, arching, grinning, aggressive Bronze Whaler a quarter of its size !!
This shark weighed in at 113kg and matched all the measurements and info in the Compagno book. The usual photos plus teeth samples and a skin sample were sent off to IGFA in Florida. The answer came back. It was definitely a Bignose Whaler Shark (Carcharhinus altimus) and was, at that time, an All-Tackle World Record.
This female shark contained 7 small (30 cm) pups (4 x males, 3 x females) already growing for birthing some 7 to 8 months ahead.
Shark 2 - February 28th 1993.
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A week later we went back to the Markham with the intention of getting a Bignose Whaler for Justin.
There was a lot more water coming downriver so we had to adjust the game plan. This time we anchored up in 93 fathoms using a detachable rope tied to a huge orange rubber float.
We quickly caught a little green-eyed shark (Smallfin Gulper Shark, according to the IGFA), which, this time went down as live bait, wearing a large break-off snapper lead attached by 2kg line, to help it to find directions...straight down !
The previous precautions were taken using tubing on the trace and squalene oil on everything.
We let the "Wild Thing" drift back another 40-50 metres, and waited.
Justin was using 15kg Amilan S line on a Shimano Triton Beastmaster 30/50 reel. The rod was a cheap Daiwa graphite about 1.7 metres overall. It was a straight stand-up rig...no game-chair on the 18' WT!
It wasn't long before the line was angling away to the side of us. We played cat-and-mouse for about 15 minutes, then slipped the orange buoy and all our anchor rope over the side. When this was clear of us Justin wound up and struck. This resulted in another dour fight with an obviously very large fish. It was eventually boat-side and was duly gaffed and roped up. First 'bite' to capture had taken 65 minutes.
We now had a bit of a problem. The Markham had decided to rough up considerably and we had to backtrack into a big slap to find our buoy and anchor rope. All this with a 100kg-plus shark strapped on one side. It took a long time just to locate our marker and an even longer time to retrieve 300+ metres of half inch rope and anchor.
Back at Lae Yacht Club the fish went 116kg on the scales, much to my sons delight! Unfortunately this was another female and had ten 30cm pups inside...7 x females and 3 x males.
It was another IGFA World All-Tackle record, beating mine by three kg !
Lester went to the Markham in October, 1993 and pulled up a monster of 167.8Kg. It was another female with pups (13 pups averaging 2.6Kg & 75cm long, birth imminent), an IGFA All-Tackle record beating both of our fish.
We decided not to go back for any more. It didn't seem fair on the secretive, lumbering sharks. Lester tells me that he and other prominent LGFC members went back many times, during the following decade, but were never lucky again.
Some Natural History, etc.
Bignose Whaler sharks are found circum-globally. Their main known areas are Florida, Mexico, Venezuela, Spain, the Mediterranean, West and South Africa, Madagascar, Red Sea, India, S E China, Hawaii and now Papua New Guinea.
Generally found in deep water near the margins of the continental shelf. Lae deep waters are very close to land and I suspect that the large female Bignose Whalers find it ideal to duck into the deep river canyons (Markham , Busu etc) to fatten up before dropping their pups.
It was only first described in 1950 which is very recent for such a large fish.
Only one provoked attack has been recorded against humans. Being a deepwater species I suspect this was a response by a hooked fish.
Although not fully protected, all Bignose Whalers caught on deep long-lines in US waters must be returned to the sea.
BM's shark (113kg) measured 208cm x-x and 240cm xx-xx.
JM's shark (116kg) measured 217cm x-x and 257cm xx-xx.
I do not have the lengths of Lester's larger shark.
They are known to measure at least 280cm and probably 300cm, with young being born at 70-90cm.
em tasol,
Barry Mallett
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