It's Shark week and Jaws is 40.

You would hardly of guessed it but Jaws is 40 years old this week.
An iconic film that has inspired many an angler to get out on the water catch one for them selves.
Well maybe not quiet as big though.
Still, big or small when they come along side your boat that classic shark shape and that fierce set of teeth looking up. They make you pause for a minute.
Even more so when your fishing from a kayak, and that's exactly what we do as often as possible.

 That's myself, Graham Smith. Delighted with the first few tope/shark of the year.

 They can fight above the water as well as below, they really are great sport.

Anthony Byrne from co.Dublin with a tope from last year.

Mike Sherwood from Belfast.

Myself and many lads from around the country meet in Inishowen in Donegal to wrestle with these hard fighting shark species, called tope.
They come into coastal waters early in the year to feed on flat fish and juvenile fish. They normally range from 20lb to 45lb but there are bigger ones around later in the year.

This year has been excellent so far and we have had quiet a few tope.
Myself  I have been trying to catch one on a fly, a type of artificial lure tied by Chasing Silver bespoke predator flies.
As far as I am aware it hasn't been done from a kayak before so that was some incentive but the fight from such a fierce battle fish was the main goal.
Thankfully I had one take the fly while I had another tope on my lap when I was unhooking it.
The tope on my lap was returned and I set the hook in the tope that took my fly.
Well it was fantastic, I grabbed the light fly rod and struck hard 3times t set the hook, and with that he took off and nearly took all my line off the reel in one straight run.
After an epic fight he was landed, a couple quick photo's he was returned to the depths to terrorise the small fish of Inishowen.

But last year myself and James Leahy went for something special and managed to catch the first blue sharks from a kayak in Ireland and the uk. My best fish was 99.7lb.
All going well we will do it again this year.