Fly Fishing for Mako Sharks with Conway Bowman off San Diego
With the coastline still in view, Bowman checked his charts and deployed the chum bucket.
"There's a deep underwater canyon right here—it drops off to 3,600 feet. We'll post up on the edge. Once the wind picks up, we should see some action. The sharks are leery of approaching the boat when there's no wind," Bowman explained.
The waiting game gave us plenty of time to catch up on old times and discuss the versatility of the ALLSURF rod we'd brought aboard. Intrigued by the platform, Conway rigged the rod as a 10-footer and attached his conventional reel. After casting surface irons—a popular local lure for tuna species—he gave the rod his stamp of approval for that particular technique.
The ALLSURF, configured as an 8-footer, has no shortage of backbone. I leaned hard into the shark and, after a spirited battle, guided the fish alongside the boat. Like he’s done countless times before, Conway calmly released the toothy critter back into the big blue wild.
