Use to get followed by a huge mako @outer raybay when I board-fished…He’d follow me around waiting for a free hand out…i called him, “Scarr” due to the prop marks on his back and dorsal fin.Scarr never tried to bite at me or a fish on line, but a couple times I almost went into the drink from the boil he’d create when he lunged for the released fish…he was like a pet dog …He would would line up right next to me just under the surface of the water…close enough to touch…last time I saw him was a couple years ago…
I’m from the Philippines and I’ve never heard of a shark attack ever from this side of the planet. But having a close encounter with a big fish in the lineup was a totally different story.
It was late in the afternoon and I’m out with two other mates. Aside from us, there were two groms in the inside. The waves are barely waist high, but since I rarely get the chance to surf, I was trying to get the most out of it. We’ve been sitting in the line up for about 10 minutes already since the last wave was ridden when I saw what I thought was a dolphin’s fin about a shortboard’s length away from my mate. I was sitting less than 10 meters away from him. I yelled his name while pointing at the fin when suddenly a dorsal fin emerged from the water. It was way bigger than any D-fin or longboard fin that I ever saw and it made me realize that what I initially saw was not a dolphin’s fin but the tip of its tail. The dorsal fin looks brownish with some perforations on the back edge. The fish is a couple of feet longer than the 6’0" my mate was riding.
I was rinding a 5’2" x 17 1/2" and I’m about 150+ pounds. But the moment I saw that triangular fin emerge from the water, I found myself kneeling on my board, which at hind sight looks stupid 'cause I’m still practically submerged in the water from the belly down.
My mate told us not to panic as he thinks it’s a whale shark. After asking him repeatedly for assurance that it is indeed a whale shark, I kinda eased up and sat very quietly in the line up. When all of a sudden they shouted, “Theres a bigger one!!!” while pointing behind me. Apparently there’s another one less than 10 feet on my left. I didn’t move nor even try turn my head to see it. We’ all kept quiet and I took the first ridable wave going inside. My mates stayed in the water a few more minutes after but I’m sure we were all creeped out.
I did some web search as soon as i got home and by the looks of the tail and the dorsal fin, I suspect that what we saw are either thresher sharks or reef sharks. But really doubt they are whale sharks as my mate have said.
The past week there have been an abundance of sharks here…both sightings in the surf and caught by fishermen. Mostly Brown Sharks and Sand Tigers. I watched one finning up on the surface stalking turtles in 2 feet of water on Sunday morning while I was out on my kayak. Last night my wife took the boys surfing and a nice size shark cruised the surface close to the beach for a couple hundred yards. This one wasn’t bashful at all. Apparently really had some tourists on the beach freaked out.
My little 13 year old friends and I found a tiny dead shark washed up on the filthy sands of our local beach- D&W (beneath the flight path of screaming jets at LAX, next spots down- Shit Pipe and Oil Pier. Nice area). We played with it for a while- leaned it against the bike path wall, stuck a cigarette butt in it’s mouth- ha ha ha. Finally got bored with the poor thing… and right on cue, an old guy on a bike pedeled past… with the silent stealth of an indian, one of us trotted along behind him and slipped the corpse on the guy’s rear wheel rack. We kept it together, but as he rolled, oblivious, out of earshot, shat ourselves laughing.
