Shark Encounters

Kind of surprised they caught that on a fishing rod and it didn't just swim away and snap everything.

 

Years ago I was in the Bahamas and did a shark dive (snorkel) trip with Stuart's Diver Cove. First place they take you is off this little island in 20 feet of water. They toss out some dog food and you are immediately surround by 500 yellow tail snapper. Swim around and look at crap, swim to bottom, yadda yadda. Next place is a sunken Coast Guard ship in 55 feet of water. One of the young bohemian kids running the boat dives off and swims to the bottom. Pretty friggin impressive. The next place is about 2 to 3 miles out on this shelf about 45 feet deep. we get in and they tell us to hang on to this rope, safety in numbers (I guess) and the current was pretty strong. The group goes to the rope and I stay out with one of the Bohemian kids. They lower this crate of cut up fish to the bottom and slowly keep raising it to bring these black tip reef sharks closer and closer. Some were coming so close I had to use my fin to push them away. Me and the kid would swim down a ways with my camera to get pics of the sharks coming straight at me. Finally they tell me go to the rope because we had a sheet ton of sharks around us now. These sharks were all around us, I had to keep putting my fins up to keep them from coming any closer. Then after about 10 minutes of that we all got back in the boat. They tossed the rest of the fish in to the sharks and it looked like something from National Geographic. VERY cool experience but I don't know if I would do it again. Sharks ranged in length from 2-3 feet up to about 6-7 feet.

https://stuartcove.com/snorkeling/snorkel-trips/

 

Didn't quite look like it was 180 lbs to me.... And how did they come up with those figures?

 

Sure seems like more and more whites are coming closer and closer to our coastlines every year.

Is it climate change? Is it because their food sources are becoming more scarce, so we're finding them in our backyards like hungry cougars and bears? Or is it because we're in the information age, and this has actually been going on under our noses forever?

 

Probably because that 11 year old that caught him weighs 185 pounds.

 

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Standard fishing rules apply... Get a look at it, guesstimate the size, multiply by 4 and tell everyone.

 

man I've had so many shark encounters..... one time I was surfing singer island and a juvenile bull maybe 4-5 feet came at me when i was paddling into a wave. I could hear it thrashing on the surface when i was about to stand up and turned to see an open mouth 2 feet from me. I stood up and it missed me so i took the wave all the wave into the beach. some guys on the beach saw the whole thing. I walked down to the south reef and started surfing again...

I had a big boy 6+ ft com rub up against my leg with dorsal fin out on the south side of Rodanthe pier.

Surfing just south of blowing rocks on jupiter island with the Aristotle crew during the mullet run a pod of 10 or so bull sharks came through following the mullet. all of us got out of the water and watched for about 45 minutes waiting for them to keep moving. it was thrash city and you could see dark patches of bleeding fish.

I used to always surf the south end of ocean reef park on SI after work. in early feb the spinner sharks come through so thick its crazy. sometimes we would count 50+ jumps in a single sunset session.

in northern mass at a certain break a juvenile pilot whale washed up on shore with BIG chunks missing. couple seals on the beach.

been spooked really hard at a few breaks along Big Sur by some big things swimming by. could've just been whales or seals though...

 

We get alot of sharks on Singer Island and a few bites, only a rare attack. But that's why I'm not a DP guy, too spooky here.

I'm not going to call any one out, we are all guilty of seeking cheep thrills. But I will emphatically state feeding wild animals and sharks and alligators and your hungry imbred cousins is wrong wrong wrong.

If you want to dive and see sharks, there are plenty out there to be seen in their natural state. No need to get them all acclimated to humans and boats.

Many spots in the Bahamas ( and it's Bahamians,not Bohemians - they are beatnicks, hate the sun, do hard drugs, listen to lamo music and can't surf, but I digress), you pull up on your boat, and the sharks hear the engine and wait, you can't land a fish.

If you dive a reef that was recently baited, you are fucked by aggressive hungry sharks that want your lunch money. And they have range, so when they roam, travel, or migrate, you may be at risk for an aggressive attack by a shark that has been acclimated and desensitized to humans.

So feed me, not the sharks. I like fresh sushi grade tuna and eel, but keep the frozen squid balls for your next party. Peace and waves my bros.

 

So true man. Stop feeding the sharks. I was spearfishing in the Bahamas and you’d see some big ones. They appear so fast. I lost a spear shaft after shooting a hogfish because a big one 8ft appeared 15ft from me. I just left it and went to the boat. Not messing around with that.

 

#imbred

 

It’s been going on under our noses forever.

 

Had a buddy do a great white cage dive in S. Africa.
Water had about 30 feet of visibility.
I’ll remember his haunting words forever.
“They appear out of thin air like mist”.

 

It is actually because THEIR food (seals, etc) resource is increasing and therefore you get the following increases in GW populations, so, we see more of them. That is what Marine Mammal Conservation Act has as a side-effect, so to speak. Simple biological prey/predator population relationship.

 

I believe this is most likely the most important causal factor.

 

I was towards the end of a beach dive/spearfishing two days ago at the breakers reef in palm beach. I had one fish in my bag tied to a float line and dive flag about 40 feet behind me. A few minutes prior, me and my dive buddy agreed we would start swimming in to shore shortly. I had just finished and resurfaced after my last dive down and was at surface catching my breath, breathing out of my snorkel. From a pool length away, something big and dark comes quickly swimming towards my direction. I have enough time to grab my pole spear and extend it out towards the general direction of the animal. At this point he's about 10 yards away and I can tell its a 6 foot bull shark, muscular and territorial looking, with some nasty dark beady eyes. He stops his charge about two feet away from the tip of my spear and at this point we are both at/near the waters surface. He slows to a cruise and takes two big full circles around me. I kept the pole spear between us each time he circled. Finally he goes completely still for a few seconds and tries to come closer. I nudge him on the nose with the spear and he retreats slightly. Then freezes again. This time my spear is inches from his gills. After a few more seconds, which felt like light-years, he disappeared as quickly as he showed up. That's when my fear kicked in and I started hustling back to shore, looking behind me every few strokes. My dive buddy wsn't too helpful as he had started swimming in before the incident and was a good 100 yards ahead of me, on the 300-400 yard swim in. What's crazy is the shark had no interest in my fish, and came straight to me. Looking back in the incident, the emotion and mannerisms of the animal were very advanced: the way he quickly and stealthily showed up, his calm but investigating circles around me to size me up, and then his exit. Very intelligent animal, much smarter than other fish.

 

Saturday in August 2016 I’m the only person in the water cause it’s rainy sunny mix and choppy, but had a few scrappy waves and I was happy. Looking for the next ride I see what I thought was a seals head about 25yds away. Keep looking and a grey triangle the size of a dam pizza box goes cruising by. It was close enough to see the top of his tail fin just rippling the surface. About the length of my 9’6”board behind the dorsal. I froze up. Pure and simple. And he didn’t give two shyts about me and just kept motoring by heading out to Minot light. Then the environmental lady tried to say it was a sunfish -

 

Good size and length descriptions.

 

It’s in my brain like an evil etchasketch drawing man, and every time I’m on the outside I get the creeps - but I keep going outside. Does that mean I need meds or is it just that this shyt is really that addicting...

 

The grey seal population went from 5000 in 2003 to over 50,000 from Nantucket to Beverly ma. Today. These big whites were hanging around montauk area breeding ground and the seals rang the dinner bell. Now the whites are dropping pups off at Hardings ledge two miles off Nantasket Beach
Which means their here to stay.