While fishing in the Cobia Invitational, Matt Clark spotted a white object moving southeasterly. We quickly steered toward it to inspect what we thought would be a manta ray, which generally means cobia. As we got closer we thought maybe a whale. Then after getting on top of the thing we realized it was a mako and a pretty big one at that.

Actually, the white object we saw turned out to be a tarpon in the mouth of the mako. After several attempts to lure the shark with both live and dead baits, we realized that in order to have any chance in catching the mako, we were going to have to get the tarpon away from it.

So I got Robert Adams to get a weighted treble hook to snatch the tarpon and attempt to drag it away from the shark. We were then able to gaff the tarpon. As soon as the tarpon was gaffed, it became evident this was not a small tarpon, but a very big one. It took three people, Jeremy Cox, Robert Adams, and my son Drew Redman, to hoist it on board.

Once on board, we cut a slab out of the tarpon and immediately hooked up the mako. After fighting it for over an hour and calling for a gun or harpoon, we finally lost the huge mako when the biggest steel leader we had on board snapped. The angler's name was JD Cox, the vessel, the Snapper Trapper.