Great White Shark Fishing in the Bristol Channel!!!! 01/04/2013

A poor winter for cod fishing in the Bristol Channel has had a lot of anglers wondering where all the fish have gone. Here at Cadbury Angling, we felt it reasonable to assume a great white shark could be to blame. Undeterred by the fact that great whites have never been seen in the Bristol Channel, let alone caught and despite people saying we were crazy, we set off to prove our point. It was only when the three of us were stood watching our balloon suspended mackerel bait, that doubts and fears started to creep in. Comments like "You're wasting you're time" and "It's dangerous, haven't you seen the film Jaws? It will end in tears" were spinning in our heads. Perhaps we should have listened? Time would tell. Hours past with no sign of our target species and so Dan, getting a little restless, suddenly pushed Toby in to the sea. "The splashing should attract some attention" said Dan. I thought this was a little unnecessary, but to my amazement Dan's rather questionable tactics seemed to have worked. The three of us watched in excitement and horror as a large, grey, triangular fin rose from the depths and headed straight for the bait .... and Toby! Frightening stuff indeed! As I watched Toby thrash around in a panic, pure terror in his eyes, I remember thinking to myself - "No one can be more scared than I am right now!" Dan grabbed the rod just as the balloon plunged beneath the waves and Toby, who had made it back safely, grabbed on to Dan. The rod bent over and the reel screamed! This was no cod! The three of us took it in turns to fight the monster shark and after several exhausting hours the beast was beaten. We had done it, against the odds we had landed a great white! Dan described a method of unhooking sharks that he'd seen on YouTube, I haven't seen the footage, but if it's on the Internet it must be real, right!? With Toby holding the sharks huge mouth open, I leaned in up to my waist and removed the hook, Dan assuring us both throughout, that we were in no danger at all. After a few photo's we released the great white back in to the Bristol Channel, pointing it south in hope that it wouldn't hang around here to decimate next winters run of cod. Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we drove home, wondering if anyone else had enjoyed such a successful April fools day as we had just done.

Our personal bests have inflated
with the capture of this great white shark!