Bluesharks are incredible
ocean travelers. Some of the sharks tagged here in the New England will go
up toward the Flemish Cap, go across the Atlantic toward England and
turn south and go off the coast of Africa; and then make a return trip to
New England sometimes via the Caribbean.
The male and female blue sharks separate
after breeding, and the big males, some of them world record size, trickle into Mass. Bay
in early July, and reach fishable numbers in late July. The blues start to leave the
area in mid October but a few are still here into early November.
There are many blues here in the summer, and some will venture
inshore into waist deep water, surprising the new groups of wading fly
fishermen casting to stripers on Cape Cod's flats. A fly fisherman told me he
was wading at Monomoy on Cape Cod in 1998, casting to stripers on the flats; when nearby
anglers shouted; Shark! He turned around and a 9 foot blue shark swam so close
to him that the tip of the pectoral fin hit his leg.
In July 1996, a non
fishing wader, in Truro Mass., receive 46 stitches in his leg from an encounter with a
blueshark. Reports of blues in shallow water have also been made in the Boston area, and
one was witnessed by a friend of mine chunk baiting stripers, inside Minots Light,
Cohasset.
Blue sharks in New England are among the largest in the world.
It is not uncommon for a Massachusetts shark tournament to have a 250 lb. or even a
300 lb. minimum weigh in for blues. Several blues over 400 lbs. have been entered in
Mass. shark tournaments.
The fork length of a blue shark rarely reaches 10 feet. When
they get over 9 feet the weight can range considerably as they just seem to get wider and
plumper. For example tournament weighed 9-1/2 Fork Length blue sharks
have weighed between 337 lb and 407 lbs. So weight tables are
approximate.
You hear often the female sharks are bigger than the males. That is not
so in every species. . Personally I have felt the male blue sharks are
bigger than the females but can't seem to see it stated authoritatively
one way or the other.
Capt. Steve James who runs the Oak Bluffs shark tournament has
sent me a list of sharks 300 lbs and over, taken in the tournament from
1987 thru 2002. It has the weight and fork length of the sharks.
In that tournament every blue shark over 300 lbs was a
male. There are male and female bluesharks in the fishing area so females
are as likely to be caught as males but no females over 300 lbs were
caught.
Here is the breakdown of blueshark weights: 300- 320 lbs= 44
fish, 321-349 lbs= 30 fish, 350- 390 lbs=15 fish and over 400= 3fish
at 406-407-454 lbs
Surprisingly the fork length in feet for the 400 pounders is
essentially the same as the 300 pounders They just get fatter. 406 lbs=
9.1FL, 407 lbs= 9.6FL, 454 lbs= 9.3 FL,
350 lb. = 9.8
FL,
377 lb.= 9.6FL, 337 lbs= 9.5 FL
Now maybe somewhere on the planet there are bigger females but these
male blues we get here set IGFA records which have world wide entries to
compete with. So why aren't big females caught in other parts of the
world. I believe because they are not as large as the males.
In our species the males are heavier and taller than the females but I
can find some females that would be exceptions and be taller and/ or
heavier than the average male, so an occasional anecdote won't cut it. Where's the
beef? If females are larger than the males,where are they?
At the tournament a few weeks ago a shark biologist came onboard and I
asked him about the sizes in the bluesharks. He told me coincidentally he
had come to the same conclusion that I had, and he has written a paper
which would be out shortly with the same conclusion that the male
bluesharks are bigger than the females.
He told me the growth curve was identical until the females breed and
then they don't grow as fast as the males.
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