Crabman
Angler
It was 1966 and I was fourteen years old. We regularly went shark fishing on my Dad's 25' Bertram. I loved shark fishing although he was a tuna man. Watching a mako jump was something everyone was amazed at. One slick calm day while fishing in the shipping lanes by the lightship buoy, we spotted a fin coming towards us. This was no ordinary fin. The distance between the fin and occasional sighting of the tail was huge. It was swimming right to us. Our lines were in and we were ready but we also knew we were probably outclassed with our 6/0 Penn Senators. As the shark approached, my Dad said it was a Great White Shark. It approached slowly and at one point we could see it going under the boat. The 25' Bertram has a 10' beam. This thing was on both sides of the boat. I can remember my Dad saying, Holy Crap, that's a big shark and estimated it at 15-16' long. It just cruised slowly under the boat and out the other side while sinking down below the surface. We thought it was gone and talked about how cool it was seeing a shark that big. We went back to chumming and caught a 100lb mako. Makos were not uncommon at that time and when we caught one, we roped off on a mid-ship cleat with it's head hanging down in the water and slit it's belly open to gut and bleed it out. Well, Big Whitey returned with a vengeance. She came up from the depths and as she did, she grabbed the mako tied off on the cleat. All hell broke loose as this huge shark came half way out of the water with the mako hanging half way out of it's mouth. The boat made a hard list to starboard as the shark thrashed. It all happened so fast and within seconds we wound up with half of a mako. My Dad hoisted our piece of the mako aboard to keep Big Whitey from making another attempt to rip our cleat off. It came back and just swam near the boat. Knowing we didn't have the tackle to handle a shark like this and to not to strip a reel, he decided to reel in the lines and we called it a day. We kept talking about Big Whitey and over the winter, my Dad decided to have a rod built that might be able to handle a shark that big. To this day, we still call that rod Big Whitey. Big Whitey was retired without catching a single shark. God only knows how we would have fought it without a chair. The rod was huge, heavy and stiff as a broom but it was always with us and tucked away in the forward vee-berth. After a few years it was retired and became a dust collector in the garage. I've been carrying this rod around for all these years. Now it's kind of tired and needs some TLC. I'm not sure where the rod was built but all of my Dad's other rods were built by Sea Isle or Augie. While this rod has a bit of diamond wrap, it does not look like anything I recognize but it is close to a Sea Isle wrap.
So with that, it's time to recondition Big Whitey. The reel has surface corrision but most is coming off without too much pitting underneath. I'm surprised how nice it looks but I'm guessing back in those days, chrome was real chrome. I've read about a couple products to clean the reel. It's called Flitz Metal Cleaner. Anybody have any experience with this. Also, I'm probably going to tear this reel completely down, so cleaning each piece is not a problem. As for the rod, the roller guides need work but that won't be a problem. The windings are tired but when I wet them, color returns and the cracks disappear. I'm going to try color preservative to see if that does anything and then eventually a new coat of epoxy. Suggestions are, as always, appreciated.
So with that, it's time to recondition Big Whitey. The reel has surface corrision but most is coming off without too much pitting underneath. I'm surprised how nice it looks but I'm guessing back in those days, chrome was real chrome. I've read about a couple products to clean the reel. It's called Flitz Metal Cleaner. Anybody have any experience with this. Also, I'm probably going to tear this reel completely down, so cleaning each piece is not a problem. As for the rod, the roller guides need work but that won't be a problem. The windings are tired but when I wet them, color returns and the cracks disappear. I'm going to try color preservative to see if that does anything and then eventually a new coat of epoxy. Suggestions are, as always, appreciated.
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