Spearfishing bullshark

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Erk... Can I unsee that? Our local Savannah, GA waters are reportedly full of bull sharks, but you can’t see them in the no viz, However I don’t lap swim with a stringer of bleeding fish. The Florida Gulf spear fishermen tell lots of stories of fending off sharks. It’s a bit like walking through the dog park with an open bag of treats in your pocket.
 
Usually they will charge to get your catch, but this is one of the few times I have seen them come all the way in.

For me the key is keeping your catch really close to your chest. Usually once you get it in close to you, within bear hug radius, they don't want any part of it. They will circle you, even charge to test you, but they usually spin off once you make eye contact. If you leave your stringer dangling off the back of you then I have seen them come all the way and strike the stringer. But if its in front of you and the shark is in your line of sight they won't charge all the way in, from what I have seen. But if you give them the opportunity to sneak up behind you then they will usually take it.

I would be curious to see what happened before this, and know what kind of fish he had. They seem to go a lot more crazy over the exotic fish, like Permit and African Pompano. Snapper and grouper not so much.
 
Animals can be unpredictable. Yesterday when I went out to walk two tiny lap dogs, a young buck was on the lawn. First he went behind a bush, but then he began to step towards me somewhat menacingly and I was perplexed. Then I saw I was between him and a doe. I decided to retreat, and then I saw the little baby fawn. The dogs and I went inside LOL.
 
At least some sharks have gotten used to taking fish off spears, especially lion fish. I was recently diving in the Bahamas with one diver who was spearing lion fish and feeding them to reef sharks. Another diver in our group had a paralens camera on an extended rod, basically a long selfie stick. At one point in the dive, a reef shark took a run at the paralens and hit it. Made for great video. We interpreted it as the shark thought there might be some food at the end of the stick so she went for it. Could the bull shark in this video have been looking for something at the end of the spear rather than threatening the Spearo himself?
 
That seems much more plausible, if you watch the second video where he explains the event in detail you can see the shark does not open its mouth until the spear touches his snout.

On the other hand, he was charging pretty fast so its tough. Hard to know what triggered this bull, he was pretty big though and the bigger they are they less scared of you they are IMO.

Another thing to note is he was free diving, so no bubbles to scare him.
 
I watched the video where the diver explained what happened and you can see that the Shark actually impales itself on the spear, the diver said he never pulled the trigger but when the shark bit through the bands the shank went into him… Almost a shark suicide!
 
Maybe the blinking red light of the diver's GoPro triggered it? HID lights and bull sharks had too close of a relationship according to some tech divers. And ... I mean ... after all ... it was a bull. :)
 

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