The original TSR started by "Big" Lou McEachern was a 9-10 month long honor-system shark fishing tournament created in an effort to promote the conservation of sharks and education of catch-photo-release to the anglers fishing for them. David "Beachbum" Williams helped collect the data through his shark fishing message board.
The original TSR came to an untimely end when the work to run it was too overwhelming for those involved. Sharkathon has taken upon themselves the task of restarting this event with the consent of "Big" Lou McEachern in an effort to further promote the conservation of sharks and to gather data from statewide participants to help scientific studies with catch data and tagging.