the south of the south island of NZ has some great stories of big fish but I dont think they have the internet there yet.
In 2004 a guy got his head bit off by an estimated 16 to 18 foot great white up in Mendocino County California. A friend of mine knew both the guy who died and the guy he was diving with. The story went that the two guys had surfaced after diving and were about 10 feet apart. They had a short conversation and the first guy dove back down to look for more abalone. The second guy took a breath or two and then began his dive down, but as soon as he got a few feet underwater he was blasted backwards by an underwater shock wave from the mammoth shark as it raced by him (only a few feet away from his face) to attack his friend. He said it was like being a few feet away from a submarine as it went by at 40 mph! He said the water it was displacing as it went by was quite scary and awe inspiring and pushed him backwards in the water like being hit by a wave. He had enough time to turn and see a cloud of red in the water where his friend had been. They pulled the guys body from the water later that day or the next and a week or two later found someone found his head on a beach south of there.
Here where I live in Sonoma County California people get bit, bumped and scared out of the water all the time. I know 3 people I can go talk with right now who have been bitten by a great white. Come visit!
nothing major from me…
once, paddling out at a semicrowded point in Santa Cruz, i saw a 12-14 footer in a wave face about 100 yards out past me and about 50 yards past the pack.
it stopped me mid-paddle 'til i realized there were at least 50 people in the water stretched across the point. waves were good and i was okay with those odds.
later that day we noticed a big lump wrapped up in the kelp out where the shark had been. a guy on a longboard paddled out and said it was a dead seal.
maybe the shark had been checking it out?
lots of thrashing in the shallows near Ano Nuevo.
i’m kinda surprised i haven’t seen more considering where i surf. seems like my friends all have more shark stories than me. hahaha, probably means that i’m
oblivious. just 'cause we don’t see 'em doesn’t me they’re not there.
north of Santa Cruze one time, a bunch of seals all exited the water at the same time and were up on the beach. couldn’t get out fast enough but never saw anything.
Yeah, I got a Sharkie story. And he put the bite on me alright. And that SOB still owes me gas money for a F’d up trip to Punta Conejo. We drove his 1994 Toyota Corolla and all I had to do was buy the gas. He told me and Bunny (really, who names their daughter Bernice?) he had the place wired. He had been calling the NWS pretending to be a harbor pilot and they gave him the green light. He told me if it wasn’t 6 foot and glassy, he’d pay me back every dime for the gas. I wanted to believe him.
So we left at 3 in the morning. Bunny couldn’t be found. Stayed out all night again. I left her a note and about $20 in small change from the glove box of the Pinto we shared.
Remember, I only went because Sharkie said he had the place wired. Great little left hand reef he said. About 12 hours south of Tijuana, just off the main road. Yeah, not even close. About 25 hours later after trying every dirt road we could find, we found it. By accident. Beautiful tall cactus off the paved road which they ought to make a national park. If I had been in the mood to enjoy the view. At the beach, nothing but an abandoned fish camp and a bunch of campers trash from the last swell. And some weak little waves. Well, we paddled out and washed off the dirt. Ended up surfing for hours. Mostly just floating, with an occasional wave. About mid afternoon, we came in to start a fire and get a head start on drying our wetsuits for the next day. Sharkie went in first. And the SOB drank every bit of water we had left after the 3 carboys drained down to the holes in the sides where they rubbed up against the tire iron.
I have never been so thirsty. You know how you get when you’ve been in the water a long time and your lips and tongue sort of get wrinkled on the inside? We bought a case of beer off a couple of fisherman in a panga cruising by, otherwise we would have had to pack it up right then and there.
OK, anyway, I gave it two days and with no real surf and in a moment of anger said I wanted my gas money back. I should have waited until he was completely out of his wetsuit, but I just lost my temper. We exchanged a few half hearted blows. Him dancing around half in and half out of his wetsuit, covered with sand. Me half drunk from the only thing we had to drink.
And you know what? The SOB bit me. On the hand. It was about the only thing he could do all tangled in the wettie. And it hurt so bad I started crying in one eye. But not the other. We laughed until it really hurt. Sharkie got his suit off, rinsed the sand and dressed. We finished the case, knowing we would be leaving the next morning. Then, in a drunken moment of weakness, he confessed to having bribed Bunny into not coming. She didn’t need a lot of convincing, he said, but he told her he had about $20 in small change and would give it to her when we got back. I said $20 in small change in my glove box? He said yes.
So there you go. Bit twice by the same Sharkie. Top that.
Okay, another story... summer '79 in Poipu, surfing Waiohai. This was before the two hurricanes Iwa and Iniki.
Small late afternoon pau hana, waves thigh high and pretty smooth, low sun. I'm coasting along on a little one in maybe five feet of clear water and look down, there's a five or six footer, white tip maybe, just moseying along. I paddled back out and mentioned it to the only other guy, a haole (yeah like me) who had been out only a little while. He got ALL freaked out and showed me a huge crescent shaped scar on his stomach and ribs. He'd just healed from a white shark bite received somewhere in Calilfornia. Didn't want ANYTHING to do with sharks, whatsoever. I think he went in a little while later, but I stayed out.
Hey, tap the well and stories come gushing out.
My brother and two friends in Hilo went down to surf Drainpipe one early morning. Since the Lady in Red covered the area in '84, this was before then. After the usual forty minute ride with three of them in Jeff's Toyota pickup, (my brother is 6'7") the pulled up to see what's cooking. It's just barely light, and IT'S FLAT. Of course. There was no surf report then.
Now you have to understand that this is the first weekend after the original Jaws movie first played in Hilo, so lots of people are freaked about Mr. Shark.
They are stumbling around, it's barely light and no one wants to drive home, but there's no surf. One wanders down to the waterline to piss and, lo and behold, something is splashing about in the tidepools. It's a seven foot shark that must have been a little over-enthusiastic about chasing fish, and got stuck. No male will resist a chance to dick around with something like that, so pretty soon the three of them are trying grab its tail. It's a chancy thing as the sharkk is still pretty lively, but soon enough... they haul the critter out of the water. And they put the stinking thing in the back of the Toyota and motored home in high spirits, hung up the critter in the back yard and got their picture in the local paper.
Real men don't just get out the water when a shark arrives... they take it out with them. Chuck Norris woulda not done so well.
[quote="$1"]
the south of the south island of NZ has some great stories of big fish but I dont think they have the internet there yet.
[/quote]
They do, but at a dial up speed of 12 kb/sec, unless they have a satellite connection. Here is a story from St Clair Beach Dunedin, March 1971. The beach has an island off it probably a good mile offshore and for generations surf life saving club members have been swimming out and around it, without wetsuits, that water is probably as cold as California water, ice cream headaches, sore feet and not a wetsuit in sight. It also has a a bell that has a shark engraved on it. To be rung whenever a shark is sited. More than once I have paddled in, in a panic, to some false alarm. To add to the drama there were/are shark nets set a way offshore. Far enough offshore to make me very nervous whenever I sighted them a couple of troughs away, whenever there was a big swell. Back to this March (Autumn) day, some young surfer who had wagged/skipped school for the afternoon was actually attacked and had his board bitten in half.
"On March 30, 1971, Mr Watkins - then a 16-year-old and skipping school - was surfing off the coast near the St Clair Hot Salt Water Pool.
"I remember being hit and the board ending up in two halves ... I didn't feel anything after that."
The attack was the last of five off the Dunedin coast in the 1960s and early 1970s, which some experts believed were the work of one rogue shark.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of Les Jordan at St Clair in 1964, Bill Black at St Kilda in 1967 and Graham Hitt at Aramoana in 1968"
Well the late Mr Lyndsay Butler of Invercargill, delighted in telling the local newspaper, The Otago Daily Times, that Nat Young, himself and a couple of other famous surfers were also in the water and "they were all wearing wetsuts" this ran in the next days paper until someone probably told the editor the ridculousness of the statement.
From what I can recall, the 16 year old's board, was red and yellow and the joke was if you had a board that colour you may as well strap a knife and fork on it.
MrT
''...and then there was the time that I was skindiving at Makaha with two friends, and a Blacktip Reef Shark would not leave us alone.'' It was a poor visability day, about 30/40 feet. The shark would keep gliding past, coming closer and closer with each pass. The shark was at least 2 feet thick at the dorsal, not counting the dorsal fin, looked to be 8 feet long. After about 15 minutes we got out of the water, as the shark was now passing by us as close as 8/10 feet. This all took place just off the big house on the point, 50 or so yards from where we would surf on smaller days.
Rock on, Garth!!!
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-ac-dc-is-the-preferred-music-of-sharks/
"AC/DC Is The Preferred Music Of Sharks
<span class="posted-by"><a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/profile/info/8077/?UID=8077&plckUserId=8077&plckPersonaPage=PersonaProfile">Ami Angelowicz</a></span>
After a long day of swimming and preying on sea life, sharks need to
take a load off just like us humans. Instead of watching massive amounts
of reality TV (not that I’ve ever done that), researchers have found
that sharks enjoy some tunes to help them relax. According to a team
studying the effects of music on a group of great white sharks in
Australia, AC/DC—more specifically the song “You Shook Me All Night
Long”—has been shown to calm the animals. When hearing that particular
hard-rock anthem, the sharks became inquisitive and much less
aggressive. Some of them even rubbed their faces along the speaker in a
gesture of affection. I wonder if something like Enya would have the
opposite effect and make them bloodthirsty? Not that I have any desire
to find out.
Anyhow, this information is very helpful for future
reference. I intend to load up my iPod with AC/DC for all forthcoming
trips to the beach. Ya know, just in case I ever find myself in a “Jaws”
situation"
howz this pic 
Ive had a few close encounters here in floriduh...
i hate sharks almost as much as resinhead hates seals
Howzit knowaloha,Excuse me for being dumb but what is that thing that you have stuck the nose of your board into I know this thread is about sharks but that doesn't look like any shark I have ever seen. Also what is that other thing net to it with the teeth and it looks like a phantom. Aloha,Kokua
The Red Triangle should be redrawn to include the Channel Island and a little south of Point Conception. http://www.fearbeneath.com/
Wood_Ogre how did you delude yourself, the water isnt much colder.
Confirmed shark attacks
Florence, August 2006
- Oswald State Park, July 2006
- Tillamook Head, December 2005
- Klamath River, October 2005
- Gold Beach, September 2004
Shark sightings
- Lincoln City, September 2007
- Cannon Beach, July 2007 and September 2004
- Crescent City, September 2006
- Brookings, June 2006
- Cape Meares, September 2005
- Newport, September 2005 and 2004
- Columbia River, September 2004
- Cape Kiwanda, August 2004
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071101/LIFE/711010307/-1/OREGONOUTDOORS01
[quote="$1"]
howz this pic :-O
[/quote]
Is there a story behind this photo? Where? When? Who? Yikes!!!
So was that Fossil Beach? I surfed there in the early 90’s, but felt pretty safe due to the 36 degree water. I wonder if it was a Salmon shark…they look like miniature whiteys (if you can call ten feet miniature), and are very common in Alaska.
looks like photoshop to me Bill…
still made me pucker tho
1964, What is now called Point Panic–Bodysurfing with Tec Chamberlin Jerry Osborne, Jeff Hackman’s dad, and a girl that I didn’t know–When we bodysurfed this spot, we would play a joke on the guys still outside in the lineup–We would take off, ride our wave, and disappear, until we swam back out. When we swam back out, with everyone looking at the horizon, we would submerge, and swim past someone, and hit their fin , underwater, with our hand–We used to laugh so hard as they went ballistic, and almost came out of the water. This day, I watched Tec come out of the water, as something hit his fin so hard, that it turned him around 180 degrees–He thought it was funny , until we counted heads, and everyone was outside–OK now what do we do? Mr Hackman, cool dude as he was, instructed us all to swim slowly inside , to the rocks, turn, face the ocean, , take off your fins slowly, and back up on the rocks—That sounded great, until the girl, who then asked why we doing this, found out, started screaming, and literally walked on water,causing the biggest ruckus–No one was hurt in that scene. We routinely saw the Aku boats, dumping their chum , at the outside Kewalo buoys, with white water all over the place, from sharks jumping–Don Hultin,and I, had the place to ourselves, and bodysurfed for about 3 hours–Don said he was going in–i told him I was going back out for one more–I waited for about 10 minutes–I saw Don, waiting on the rocks, since he drove me down, and he wanted to get going. I got a great 6 foot wave, perfect position, tube all the way to the rocks, and was so stoked–I looked up at Don, and told him “–ONE MORE”–He was jumping and screaming to come in-- A big Tiger had followed me, under me, for the entire wave–he had been in the wave before I took off–Needless to say , I came in… Surfed many nights at Number 3’s lost 2 boards out there, swimming around looking for them, and never thought anything about sharks–Surfed Inside Chuns’s in the full moonlight, Ala Moana , when it was about only 3-4 feet, at night, Queen’s, all the time, at night , Canoes’s , all the time,at night and never thought about it–Lucky, I guess–mac
“A big Tiger had followed me, under me, for the entire wave–he had been in the wave before I took off-”
Talk about “right of way” issues!!! I guess that just goes to show, never drop in on a local…
Hi, Bad news from Réunion Island.
After the last shark attack on EDDY … RIP … two weeks ago .
New shark attack this afternoon again …
http://www.linfo.re/-L-info-du-jour-/Un-adolescent-attaque-par-un-squale