So..
set-up on a decent fish the other night that ended up taking zero drag. Felt weight but no runs, so I babied it in (was messing with my head that it wasn't fighting, I kept waiting for some big run)

I get it in and there is a chunk of it's back gone. between the head and dorsal, a shallow "U" shape, probably a solid 7" down the length of the fish, maybe 1.5" deep and 4: or so across the top of the fish. Looked too clean to be a shark, it almost looked man-made, but I cant think of why.

It was a clean cut, not bleeding, and starting to heal over, and it had good color, and seemed healthy other than this huge flesh wound. Swam off, but after it's lack of fight I'm not sure it would have made it.

It was the biggest chomped fish I've gotten, 36", maybe 16lbs. usually it's just schoolies that have gotten tagged by a bluefish...

anyone else (cape guys?) have similar size fish get chomped...

maybe a seal but more likely a big blue. there known to take a nice easy bite out a meal like that. i found this on you tube with a guy in a similar situation. http://youtube.com/watch?v=nRIp_b0iT7c

Gunpowder.. maybe, but a bluefish with a 7" bite radius? it was one clean bite.. and I have a hard time seeing a bluefish tracking down and nailing a 36" bass

shark

I had one almost 10 years ago @ Quonny. Fish would have likely been over 30 pounds (it weighed in at 26 and change) but was missing several chunks out of it - too big to be a blue and cleanly cut...

I had one last year off the south side of the vineyard, was bringing it in and it felt like an ok fish, then it started splashing around and got super heavey. it was a black night with fog so couldnt see anything, just heard it breaking the surface and throwing water around. then all of a sudden it got lighter, thought at first i had lost the fish but it was still swimming around. got it in and there were big marks around the tail. wounded and bleeding. my buddy was with me, and we both thought seal.

Seals tend to rip the flesh off of a bass, as opposed to eating it with clean bites.

I think shark too. Back in the 80s we were getting blues going 20#s plus and a bite radius of 7"s is possible I guess.

i don't know if you read chefs thread Bryan, but he caught a fish the other night that had a hole in its gut. didn't appear to be mycobacteriosis as the hole seemed to be healing and didn't look like a sore. very weird...

Having had expewrienced fish that were the victims of both sharks and seals and having witnessed the attacks and had visual confirmation I can say that it was a shark.

Seals leave punture wounds like a dog bite if the fish escapes in the first moments of the encounter.

Sharks bite clean 99% of the time.

Years ago, on Monomoy, I had two fish near 30 pounds on s tringer as we would walk out onto a bar to a channel edge at night 50 to 60 yards offshore in three feet of water and fish the channel drop off with eels of plugs. This particular night I was alone there out on the bar casting F-80s and taking an occasional fish which would be strung on the rope rather than making the long walk back to shore.

The third fish I hooked that night was in the same range, about 30 pounds and took off down tide in the channel when the water just exploded out in the dark and for a second or two the rod just doubled over and line screamed then just dead weight and quiet.

I reeled up the weight and found half a bass from just foreward of the vent to the tail gone. The bass had the Rebel firmly hooked in it's jaw. The fish would have gone 30 pounds and was cut clean in an arc.
It was an anxious walk back to shore with my rod butt at the ready.
I never ventured out on that bar again at night.

In the last couple years I have hooked both bass and Bluefish that were attacked by seals in daylight and dark and the wounds are puncture type or torn and chewed.

I'll say shark then.
weird to be on top of the fish, usually sharks would go for the tail or mid-section. this was on top of the fish./..

what the hell. still a weird encounter...

http://#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&.com/images/Dcp00143a.jpg:wiggle:

Scott you could have waited for lunch!:tooth:

Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn't any propeller; and it wasn't any coral reef; and it wasn't Jack the Ripper! It was a shark.

Ahhh - and the ladies of Spain (or however that goes)...

Anyone ever hook into a shark in close in Rhody? I know it's not uncommon at some places like Smith Point on Nantucket...

I had a 31" bass at Cuttyhunk several years ago that had a neat semi-circular bite in its side. Just one side, not both, and not throught the fish, maybe a half-inch deep.