Big game fisherman Clive Green

Early in 1976 big game fisherman Clive Green came to Albany to bag himself a white pointer shark of world record proportions. Whaling at Cheyne Beach on Frenchman’s Bay was, back then, attracting tourists who took in the early morning sights and smells of flensing the daily catch of humpbacks and sperm whales.
In addition to tourists, the whaling industry attracted many white pointer sharks that gorged themselves on a free feed of blubber. For the day’s catch of the monsters of the sea would be lightly bobbing at anchor ready for the flensers.

On a sunny mid-morning I joined Green and his party and ventured out into Frenchman’s Bay on a planked timber boat—-belonging to a helpful local fisherman—to suss out the area and plan a strategy for a record shark haul. On our approach to the whaling station we noticed a monster shark gently break the surface of the water and effortlessly ‘mouthing’ a floating 44 gallon oil drum.

What luck!

What a sight!

But another hour went by without any further sightings. Most of our number eagerly scanned the water on the starboard side of the vessel and tiring of the search, I sat on the port side being about half a metre from the water on the freeboard.

All of sudden a huge grey platform glided silently beside the boat, just below my backside. The sight took my breath away, unable to shout to the others, but the natural reflex to touch the beast overtook me and the feel of the shark’s sandpaper-like skin is still memorable today.

There were several more sightings that morning, exciting the adventurer Green to get his game fishing chair out of storage and bolted—preferably onto a steel hulled boat and mount a real challenge the following morning.

And so at dawn on Anzac Day, Clive Green accompanied by a couple of deckhands, onlookers and a Channel 7 (Perth) film crew set off from Emu Point to do battle with the feared predator.

As the day’s catch of whales was grouped together, anchored near the beach, a few sharks demonstrated for the film crew how to feed off a floating whale.
Big jaws chomp down on a sizeable chunk of blubber as they manoeuvre their bodies from side-to-side setting up a slicing motion for their razor sharp rows of teeth.

Attempting a world record shark catch on a 130lb breaking strain fishing line needs patience, stamina and most of all away from the attraction of whale blubber. For your catch must use animal bait, not marine mammal. (IGFA International Game Fishing Association rules.)

But patience was in short supply that morning and for Green the lure of hooking a big, big fish, right there in the water, was far too tempting and so a ‘first try’ using whale meat was just too overwhelming.

Slapping the water with brilliant red whale meat soon enticed the big monster to get hooked and a four hour and forty five minute battle ensued. Playing a tonne and a half of shark using a minimal 130lb line is a sight to behold. Strapped into what looks like a barber’s chair the game fisherman must keep the pressure up to the fish. And working in concert with the skipper of the boat; must know when to reverse the vessel to chase after the fish and when to power forward.

A team effort!

The female white pointer was 4.826metres long, over 3 metres in girth and weighed 1550kg. It was weighed at the weighbridge at Albany Port. Green is in the white cap watching on.