This is the story of the state record mako caught by Jeff Shindle, Jan 27 2002

707.5#  shortfin mako

 Jeff Shindle landed this 707.5-pound mako shark off the east coast of Port Mansfield last weekend, The catch is pending as a state record. Preparation and patience helped local fisherman Jeff Shindle land a 707.5-pound mako shark.

BY RON HENRY STRAIT
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER 

The top story has to be local angler Jeff Shindle's record-smashing shortfin mako shark landed last weekend at Port Mansfield,

Moving south, the story of the monster shark is a mixture of preparation, skill and luck.

Shindle was fishing with friend Ben Reyna on Rey-na's 26-foot Glacier Bay, the "Reel Smooth," last Sunday After six hours of drifting in 3- to 5-foot seas 50 miles offshore, they were about to pack up and call it a day when the huge mako hit one of four baits.

"We were just about through," Shindle said, "but we had found makos in the spot before, so we were reluctant to quit."

Two weeks earlier, Shindle had brought his first mako to the rail, but it was too large to get into the boat. When he and Reyna looped a half-inch nylon towrope around its tail to secure it, "The fish went ballistic. It snapped the rope and just took off."

Impressed but not discouraged, Shindle baited a line and 30 minutes later hooked what turned out to be a 450-pound mako.

When Reyna and Shindle returned to their spot last weekend, they put out four lines. The 14/0 hooks were rigged on 15 feet of 300-pound-test piano wire tied to 20 feet of doubled 300-pound test mono leader. The complete record-breaking rig was a Penn International 50 two-speed reel loaded with 50-pound-test Sufix yellow mono. The reel was seated in a custom stand-up Bimini rod built by local rod maker David Mata.

"We were on a current line in about 600 feet of water," Shindle said. "We put out baits at 200,100 and 50feet deep and one on top. "On top" means about 5 or 6 feet deep. The hooks, about the size of a large human hand, were baited with 10-pound filets of jack crevalle.

"It was really slow. We were about to go home when the fish hit," Shindle said. "It came leaping completely out of the water toward the boat."

But he couldn't set the hook, and the monster mako was gone. That turned out to be good.

"It never felt the hook the first time. It wasn't spooked," Shindle said. In 15 minutes, it was back. The second time around, Shindle did set the hook into what felt like a runaway freight train.

Ten times the mako went airborne, usually in the opposite direction from where the line entered the water. It made 50 runs, some stripping off more than 600 yards of the reel's 800 yards of line.

"Every time I'd get the (leader) knot to the rod and thought I had it won, the fish would take off again." When the fight ended, they secured the fish to the boat, and Reyna towed it for more than four hours back to Port Mansfield.

"We couldn't lift it out of the water, so we tied it to; a pickup truck and towed it out.

"There was no scale big enough to weigh it. We knew we would have to take it to Port Aransas."

With the help of 11 bystanders, they loaded the fish into the bed of the truck and packed it in ice, but by now it was 1 a.m.

"When we got to the INS check station about 6 a.m., the patrolman asked us if we were citizens, then he looked in the back of the truck and said it 'What the hell is that?' We just knew we were going -to have to unpack the shark and cut it open."

The border patrolman asked a few questions, and "He looked at us. We were covered in shark blood and slime. He let us go through."

On Monday morning in Port Aransas, more than 12 hours after the landing, they got the word from the official scale at Island Moorings Marina. The lOfoot-long shark with the 68-inch girth weighed 707.5 pounds, smashing the existing Texas record for, shortfin mako, which was 541pounds. All that's left to do now is to wait for official word from TP&W that the fish is a new state record.   

In the meantime, "We'll be eating lots of fish," Shindle said. 'Part of one filet weighed 150 pound,"