I hate to even bring this up,but I got a question about sharks in the carolina area. disclaimer: I know there r sharks all over the ocean. I know it is their homes. I have encountered small sharks where I live in cali, and some of my local san diego spots list "sharks" under hazzards, although we have a sighting every few years and no real incidents. so with all that being said: surflines travel descriptions say that altough the outer banks touts the fact that they have very sharky waters. surfline says that wrightsville and souther nc have many more sharks than even obx. they list sharks as hazzards under a lot of ur local breaks on wannaswurf.com etc. so how much does this affect u guys? do u guys actually have run ins with large ones, of the deadly persuasion? or is it mostlt little guys. I know surfers all act like its no big deal. but I want to know if this is all coincidental info, or if this actually occurs out there. I mean, what kind of sharks r we talkin over there.???? im assuming the end up in southern north carlonia because they are migrating up the coastline and the run into the curve in the shoreline and the coastal armpits just get in their way...
there are sharks, mostly small ones that don't bother people. Sometimes we'll see bigger (maybe 6 foot) ones but i rarely see those. I see a few each year but i've never been so much as bumped by one. Occasionally a tourist or something will get bitten, but i've never heard of any fatalities. So, to me at least, its pretty much a non-issue.
cool. thanks. I figured that was probably the case. like I said, I have surfed spots for 7 years in san diego and the worst I've encountered was like 20 leopard sharks feeding on the reefs at my local spot. a couple of guys warned us, but we walked out, checked out the sharks, the biggest ones were about 6 feet and they are bottom feeders, so we paddled right out in the mix of them. never had any run ins while we were out. so yeah, I understan.d seeing little sharks in the water, but I was curious if this is like little florida sharks or south africa over there. its just that tons of spots over in southern nc are listed as "shark hazzaards". but it sounds to me like it is no more hazzardous than the rest of the eastern seaboard. san diego has huge fish offshore but luckily I never see em. a guy told me a few years back that a 16 foot white shark was circling under the lineup at south garbage a few years back, and the lineup is 1/4 mile offshore. they closed the beach. nothin happened tho. my old room mate lived win wrightsville beach before he moved to diego and he told me a lot of guys he surfed with in nc has little bites and scratches, but that's it.
I've seen 1 in 5 or so years of surfing. It was a good sized about 6 foot one, but he was way outside of the lineup and didn't seem to have any interest in us. I know they are out there, but I've just never had a problem with them.
I was surfing a prominent break on the obx 3 summers ago with a close friend of mine and I will never forget the feeling of paddling out and literally slapping sharks as we were paddling. I have been chase outta the water a couple of times, seen a pelican be turned into lunch by a bull shark, and have seen a 7ft hammer head that happened to be a regular at a bar I surfed at all the time.
yeah i think surfline is a little off on that one. In southern nc the only spots to worry about are cb, fort fisher, and where the cape fear river dumps out near bald head. Even so, i've surfed here for a while and only seen 2 legit sharks. i think the outerbanks (especially hatteras and frisco) are more sketchy than here, supposidly there were some big boys around the groins a month or two ago during a swell...
There were rumors last summer of a bull shark in central jersey and when i was out at about 7:30 in the evening, I saw a fin, and it came pretty close to me... but it was just being curious like any animal is. They're just animals and even if there is one in the water, they hardly ever bother you. I read a couple months ago in the Surfrider newsletter that in 2007, 270 people were killed by faulty toasters, only 4 people were killed by sharks!! so there, maybe we should start killing off the toasters instead of the sharks!!!!!!
that shark in the picture is plenty big. what is that a 10 foot tiger or bull? was that fish caught on a boat off shore or was it spotted around that dock? the other story about the 13 foot great white dirfting to shore makes sense. I mean, I know that the big boys r out in the deep water. I grew up in ocean city, md. anyone who has been there has seen the 20 foot replica of the great white that was caught miles and miles of the ocean city coast. its different if those kinds of fish show up in shallow water.
it was caught offshore. a few miles off the coast of carolina beach or somewhere close to sc. and the shark is a 1.5 ton great white to be precise.
we have sharks. big and small. dont.....try not to think about them as much as I can however I have seen and caught everything from 12" to a 12 - 13 foot bull shark me and belly brought to the boat while tarpon fishing last summer at north santee bay...just south of winyah bay. have seen numerous large sharks near shore feeding on menhaden along side of tarpon in the summer. not to be a bummer but tread lightly while heading back out after a wave and be aware of stingrays too. they can spoil your day also
wbsurfer. http://www.grindtv.com/blog/2020/huge-shark-caught-at-world-famous-surf-spot/ That shark photo that you posted is from Tahiti. I thought that was a photo of one of the coast of carolina beach area. Just bumped into that link on another thread. Same fish. P.s. its a tiger shark
Not too much to worry about... I have surfed from the OBX to the low country for the past 15 years, and I have had very few run-ins with any substantial sharks. One time after a hurricaine, (cant remember which one...seems like it was in 94), they pulled us out of the water at Onslow Beach because a kid got brushed by an 8 foot hammerhead. We just headed down to Topsail where there weren't any lifeguards. My boys went out with me last fall (9 and 5 y/o) and we saw a 6-7 foot tiger at Pawley's Island. He seemed like he was heading towards us with" a purpose", so we made for the shore and didn't have any trouble from him. Other than those two incidents, I have never seen anything over 5 foot...not ot say they aren't there...they have just left me alone so far. Florida surfers are far more prone to becoming a snack than we are here.
i usually just have to push the thought out of my head and just continue surfing but if you have your kids out and a shark of any kind acts curious. kids have to get out. I know they usedto say dont punch a shark.... well... f them.
I always just surf really close to cricha, if one comes towards me, im going to circle cricha twice and then paddle on in (ill call for help after i get dried off, dont want to get a chill).
I remember in the summer i was in the water next my board after I had a wave betwween the sandbar and the shore and I felt something pretty decent sized bump into my leg. You bet I jumped back on my board and paddled in.
