The strong Fireline cuts the icy water and three sets of eyes stare in expectation into the blue/green void. My heart skips a beat when a huge greyish mass transforms into a weird looking fish of more than 10 feet in length. At last - we have succeded in hooking one of the “sleepers” ...

Full of adventure in our veins, Niels, Morten and I descend from the Greenland Air Sikorsky helikopter. We are in Maniitsoq, Western Greenland, standing on a small hilltop overlooking the most wonderous little town. Everything looks promising and we pray that what we see is what we get : Sunshine, fresh air, clear weather, snowy mountains, arctic birds, iceblue fiords and water looking like a crystal mirror.

The mission is: Greenland sleeper shark. An ITV film crew wanted to do a documentary on this virtually unknown giant shark, and we were supposed to catch it – bloody good deal.

It was a bit hard to comprehend that it was only three weeks since Niels told us about this trip and its purpose. Three weeks to sort out everything about fishing tackle, clothing, travel itinerary and preparations of the fishing itself. While Niels from Team Arctic took care of the travel arrangements and fishing preparations, and Morten took care of the fishing tackle and clothing, I bit my nails and managed to do the last panic shopping.

The Greenland sleeper shark is one of the biggest shark species in the world. It reaches 8 metres (24 feet) in lenght and can weigh up to 2 tons (4400 lbs). The standing sportfishing record for this shark is 775 kg (1709 lbs). Not very big in fact considering its potential.

As one can make out from its name, it is known for its slowness. Its latin name is Somniosus microcephalus, which means “the sleepy one with the small head”. The shark lives in the Arctic Ocean and the north Atlantic.

The sleeper shark is not a threat to people, but just about anything else moving around in or on the water, has a good potential to end up in its belly. It is a scavenger, hunter and even cannibal. Old stories tell us about sleeper sharks that have been caught, where the stomach contens are truly astonishing; in one shark was found a whole reindeer (whitout antlers, though), in another was found a huge seal the size of an oxe, plus 14 cod. In addition, sleeper sharks have eaten delicatesses like all sorts of birds, dogs, whales, many types of fish, corals and even a ram’s head has been noted from one of these beasts.

The Greenland Sleeper Shark is pestered by a small parasitic crustacean that feeds on the cells of the sharks eyes, eventually blinding the fish. But with so many things in nature, there are natural compensations, and as in this case the little critters are flourescent, which is alluring to the fish on the dark depths and thereby presenting a better access to food for the shark.

The initial 4 days we fished and baited by the bouys, where our local contacs from Maniitsoq had prebaited the previous couple of weeks. These four prebaiting spots were situated at depths from 120 to 750 feet of water.

On the first day, we had only fished for half an hour, when a fish took the huge bait - a piece of seal skin/blubber. I waited what felt like an eternity before i struck. There was contact with something very big for a few seconds, but then nothing. To be quite honest, I must have struck too soon. Anyway, we were all psyched up now, and held our rods in utter anticipation. No more fish took the baits that day - and neither the following couple of days.

Everything esle was bliss, though. Lovely surroundings, beautiful weather and countless birds. Vi baited up every day at the buoys with a rubby-dubby made of finely chopped rotten seal meat and blubber, seal blod, rotten pieces of seal meat/blubber, lumpfish carcasses and intenstines, and occasionally a whole skinned and rotten seal. This is without a shadow of a doubt the most revolting mess i have ever put my hands into – even though we used rubber gloves.

Then the film crew arrived. They were very keen on getting started due to the brilliant weather, but we, of course, didn’t have much in the way of a giant shark.

Team Arctic and the film crew decided to put out a reward to the local fishermen for a big shark : £ 400 for the first shark over 2 metres, and £ 900 for the first over 4 metres. That helped !

Already early the following morning a local had caught a big shark weighing well over 550 lbs and easily exceeding the 2 metres. It was caught just a few hundred yards outside the village harbour ...

Thus we spent the day filming and photographing. The film crew had set their minds to film the shark in an environment as close to its natural habitat as possible, and preferbly at a location with an icecover on the water. Sunshine and ice don’t mix very well for longer periods of time, but we managed to find a small enclosed bay with an area covered by 10 inch thick(”thin”) ice. It was with a great deal of hesitation that we first stepped onto that creaking surface, and especially when we had to drag the big monster of a shark up aswell. But fortunately, we had no close encounters with the icy waters below.

During the filming, more local fishermen arrived with sharks. Another two sharks looked forward to infinite fame and stardom. The sharks were caught on handline and baited pirk. No small feat considering the size of the biggest one, which weighed in the neighbourhood of 800 lbs.

The film crew seemed very pleased with everything. They filmed both above and under the ice, letting the shark back into its natural element eventually.

These shootings will be shown on ITV Channel primetime, Discovery Channel, and a couple of european channels, under the name “Giants”. It is a series of the worlds largest animals including fish, insects, mammals ...

The next day the film crew wanted to do some last small bits of filming on the ice (which had inevitably become smaller and thinner). Niels, Morten and I decided to go fishing instead, and that proved a very good idea.

We had come to know about incidents, where local hunters had left seal remains on an icefloe, and subsequently a couple of sharks had managed to tip the icefloe to get the meat into the water. And we had ourselves seen sharks in the surface, when we baited with rubbydubby - the oils from the blubber floated to the surface, and undoubtedly tempted the sharks. So what would be more natural than to fish for them in the surface, when they shoved up.

We tried, and Niels had success. No lead attached to the rig, Niels casted to a shark in the surface, and let the bait sink slowly. The shark took the bait after a few seconds, and Niels let the fish swim for at least 3 minutes before striking - and the fish was hooked. Niels’ 50 lbs rod bent right around under the immense pressure of the giant leaving the scene at a steady pace. We were honestly doubting wether fish actually knew it was hooked or not.

We put a fighting belt and a harness on Niels and set after the fish. No way were we going to just reel it in. There may be good reason to call it Sleeper Shark, but in this case it must be a sleepwalker. We had to drive the boat to the fish and try to make it swim in our direction.

It took 45 minutes of strenous fighting and sweating before the shark gave in. It surfaced 50 metres from the boat, and from there on it lived up to its name - it became absolutely placid to the extent of unconsciousness, or perhaps it just plain fell asleep ?!

We tied up the more than 3 metres long shark to the boat and carefully went to Maniitsoq harbour, where we had the fish weighed at the fish factory. It weighed 305 kg (672 lbs).
 

Mission Accomplished !

We ended the trip with a grand buffet at the Maniitsoq Hotel together with the film crew. We had Greenlandic delicacies like raw marinated whale meat, whale skin, marinated reindeer, marinated muskox, seal meat, dried cod and halibut, polar hare, scallops and much, much more.