Spearfisher encounter with Great White of FL east coast.

[dumpsterDiver]

Rickl: thanks for the link: that's an interesting account of the encounter and the guys involved.

They have steely nerves: I would not have come up with 1000 psi.

Me either... I would have hit the surface with 2999 psi.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Just for a visual image, this is what you'd be jabbing there:

That's a cross-section of the tail from a 9-foot great white brought into a lab I worked in; he'd gotten entangled in a halibut net off of Ventura and drowned. I can testify that the skin is pretty thick stuff; I had to cut it off the muscles like a rind. Some of the other juveniles I've examined that met similar fates (one was maybe a few months old; he was maybe five feet or less and still had a yolk scar on his chest) had California round rays and juvenile bat rays in their stomachs. Those barbs didn't do them much good; they went down more or less whole. I imagine you'd need a pretty solid poke to something sensitive to get a midsized white shark's attention. To me it looks like she was flinching away from the spear on the first couple tries and on the last one he finally got a good, solid discouraging hit in on her face; that was what convinced her to leave him alone.

I still think this was investigatory rather than predatory, which is not ruling out that she could have taken a test bite eventually and severely injured or killed him. I doubt ISAF would term this an attack; if that does meet their criteria I know some folks who would be phoning a new one in every weekend.

 

[Ghetto Diver]

Dayum... Fire up the grill!

Agreed that this wouldn't be classified as an attack.

I love how this vid is being analyzed though. Whether aggressive or not....how many times did you (sb'ers) watch it? I watched it twice initially. Then I watched it prolly 4 more times after I read of the first bump.
The diver would have seen this once, perhaps with a partially obscured mask (I am adding a bit of suspense).
With my lack of spearing experience, I would have shot it.

I am surprised the anti- soloist's haven't chimed in.




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[wspalding]

It's good that this diver had a tool to use to show the shark that there are better options to investigate. A question to those with far more shark experience than myself, what are the best options for those of us that don't spear and have nothing in hand to bump the shark off; other than hunkering against the reef and hoping the shark loses interest, what else could this diver have done? I think I would have been a sitting duck.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Dayum... Fire up the grill!

Agreed that this wouldn't be classified as an attack.

I love how this vid is being analyzed though. Whether aggressive or not....how many times did you (sb'ers) watch it? I watched it twice initially. Then I watched it prolly 4 more times after I read of the first bump.
The diver would have seen this once, perhaps with a partially obscured mask (I am adding a bit of suspense).
With my lack of spearing experience, I would have shot it.

I am surprised the anti- soloist's haven't chimed in.




Sent from my iPhone from my momma's basement

I'd advise against throwing it on the grill - one of the things they did was a tox screen. PCBs, DDT, mercury, and probably a few other fun things were off the charts. They're feeding on bottom fish when they're young (hence the number of pups and juvies that get tangled up in halibut nets, and the rays we found in their stomachs); those animals are eating other fish and inverts living in the muck. Because of bioaccumulation (rough rule; a predator will accumulate 10x the level of contaminants that its food has, because it's eating a number of them) the juvenile white sharks get a heavy dose. And they're growing up in Southern California waters around LA and Long Beach Harbors, not to mention the world's largest DDT plant used to dump its product right off of the Palos Verdes peninsula.

As far as what he should have done if he didn't have a spear - hunkering down behind that ledge was probably the best move. If it's only curious, it might take a few passes and then lose interest. White sharks are ambush predators; odds are that they are not going to go after something that is a) unusual and b) aware of their presence and reacting to it.

Now this guy is probably the world's expert on how to react when diving solo around white sharks - Devil's Teeth - YouTube

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Go sidemount! Then you can just swing one of the tanks at it.

 

[Mike]

It's good that this diver had a tool to use to show the shark that there are better options to investigate. A question to those with far more shark experience than myself, what are the best options for those of us that don't spear and have nothing in hand to bump the shark off; other than hunkering against the reef and hoping the shark loses interest, what else could this diver have done? I think I would have been a sitting duck.

You'd be surprised what reactions sharks have to just taking your other reg and free flowing it a bit. 99% of sharks are timid little school girls.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Well, bother. I scheduled a trip to the Spiegel Grove on Sunday morning with an eye towards seeing if I could catch Katherine ... and of course this afternoon her tag pinged about halfway between Marathon and Cay Sal. Looks like she's still headed south.

 

[wspalding]

Well, bother. I scheduled a trip to the Spiegel Grove on Sunday morning with an eye towards seeing if I could catch Katherine ... and of course this afternoon her tag pinged about halfway between Marathon and Cay Sal. Looks like she's still headed south.

Katharine probably isn't the only GWS migrating south.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Yeah, but it's nice when you can track one and get your hopes up. She doubled back towards Islamorada yesterday morning ...

Of course, in any case it's been eight years since my last run on the Spiegel. That's excuse enough to brave the tourons on Useless 1.


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