Hammerhead Sharks with Emerald Charters in Jupiter, FL

[Pearlman]

One of the finest videos I have seen underwater, that's not a documentary and capturing the thrill of a days diving. I envy you absolutely.. a 1000 times :thumbup:

Sent from my GT-N7000

 

[muzikbiz22]

Will Randy/Emerald get on to the Goliath Grouper spawning in the coming coming month(s) ?

 

[islanddream]

The first dive is the deep ledge which is about 120 feet on the bottom. Nobody goes to the bottom though, most divers go down to about 80 or 90 feet and then we start to slowly ascend. I'd say we were at 80 feet for 10 minutes or so, rest of the dive is spent at 40 feet. The second dive we did the wrecks which are 90 feet if you go down in the sand. The third dive was a reef which is 65-80 feet.

Thanks for the info. What kind of water temp did you have? I'm glad these dives are a deeper than the ones we did in Key Largo. The surge at 30 feet didn't agree with me :depressed:.

 

[Murfdizzle21]

One of the finest videos I have seen underwater, that's not a documentary and capturing the thrill of a days diving. I envy you absolutely.. a 1000 times :thumbup:

Sent from my GT-N7000

Wow, thank you very much. We just feel so blessed to have had an encounter like that and to have had two cameras to catch all the action. Going out again this Saturday to try and do the same. Fingers crossed...

Will Randy/Emerald get on to the Goliath Grouper spawning in the coming coming month(s) ?

Yes he definitely will. Please do not quote me on this, but I would be hoping that on the three tank trips during he aggregation we would hit the deep ledge first dive and see sharks, wreck trek second dive for goliaths and then mg-111 for the third dive for more goliath. That would be ideal for me

Thanks for the info. What kind of water temp did you have? I'm glad these dives are a deeper than the ones we did in Key Largo. The surge at 30 feet didn't agree with me :depressed:.

There have been some upwellings the last couple weeks but it was warm last saturday. i'd say 75 or so on the bottom 81 on the surface.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

That hammerhead has me racking my noggin - for some reason the head shape looks more like a scalloped to me, but the large dorsal and pecs have me thinking great hammerhead. It's definitely not shy like a scalloped normally would be. Looks pretty thin though - wonder if all the fishing tackle is interfering with its normal feeding and behavior.

Then again, I'm going off an ID guide and photos. I only saw my first scalloped hammerhead on the Emerald the previous weekend, and I've never seen a great hammerhead. The scalloped hammerhead I saw hung around for the first two dives on the deep ledge and made a grand total of three passes within visual range; I count myself lucky I got two or three worthwhile photos before it slipped away.

 

[sportxlh]

Murfdizzle: great video though I still wonder about the wisdom of shooting fish and feeding them to sharks: feels like it violates the spirit of Florida's ban on shark feeding and makes me nervous that some poor spear fisher will really have problems with sharks that are now completely Pavlov-isized to equating divers with long sticks to free meals. I can't decide if I want to book a trip with Emerald right now or stay 100 miles away from his boat! Regardless of my misgivings, the action you captured is pretty awesome to watch. I enjoyed the GG segments as well! Nice music selection too.

 

[scubadada]

Murfdizzle: great video though I still wonder about the wisdom of shooting fish and feeding them to sharks: feels like it violates the spirit of Florida's ban on shark feeding and makes me nervous that some poor spear fisher will really have problems with sharks that are now completely Pavlov-isized to equating divers with long sticks to free meals. I can't decide if I want to book a trip with Emerald right now or stay 100 miles away from his boat! Regardless of my misgivings, the action you captured is pretty awesome to watch. I enjoyed the GG segments as well! Nice music selection too.

I share this concern. I've done several great shark dives off deep ledge without this. But of course, maybe it's because of this.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I'm a relative newcomer to the Jupiter diving scene and these boards, but the impression I've gotten is that if you shoot a fish on the 130' ledge, sharks will come to investigate sooner or later. I'm not sure if that predates Randy doing these sorts of dives, but given that we've known for the past 50-60 years that shooting fish and strapping them to you makes for a high probability of shark encounters, I'd say probably yes.

 

[Murfdizzle21]

That hammerhead has me racking my noggin - for some reason the head shape looks more like a scalloped to me, but the large dorsal and pecs have me thinking great hammerhead. It's definitely not shy like a scalloped normally would be. Looks pretty thin though - wonder if all the fishing tackle is interfering with its normal feeding and behavior.

Then again, I'm going off an ID guide and photos. I only saw my first scalloped hammerhead on the Emerald the previous weekend, and I've never seen a great hammerhead. The scalloped hammerhead I saw hung around for the first two dives on the deep ledge and made a grand total of three passes within visual range; I count myself lucky I got two or three worthwhile photos before it slipped away.

I agree with you about the hammerhead being on the "skinny" side for it's length. As for which species it is hard for me to tell as well, I was just going by the consensus of all the divers on the boat. All the scalloped hammers I've seen have been from a distance as well.

Murfdizzle: great video though I still wonder about the wisdom of shooting fish and feeding them to sharks: feels like it violates the spirit of Florida's ban on shark feeding and makes me nervous that some poor spear fisher will really have problems with sharks that are now completely Pavlov-isized to equating divers with long sticks to free meals. I can't decide if I want to book a trip with Emerald right now or stay 100 miles away from his boat! Regardless of my misgivings, the action you captured is pretty awesome to watch. I enjoyed the GG segments as well! Nice music selection too.

I hear what you're saying, but sharks have associated spear fishers, and the sound the spear gun makes, with a free meal long before Randy started doing any of the feeding dives. These sharks are highly migratory species and there was a study done, I will try to find the link, which shows that the tiger sharks being fed at tiger beach in the Bahamas did not change there feeding or migratory habits at all. So I do not agree with the argument that the sharks will just always be out on the deep ledge looking for spearos. There's been days I've been out on the deep ledge with Randy and tons of bait and we never even saw one shark, you never know what you're going to see out on the deep ledge.

I share this concern. I've done several great shark dives off deep ledge without this. But of course, maybe it's because of this.

If you're spearing, you will probably see sharks on the deep ledge whether you shoot something or not, all you really need to do is shot the gun off, you don't even have to hit a fish.

I'm a relative newcomer to the Jupiter diving scene and these boards, but the impression I've gotten is that if you shoot a fish on the 130' ledge, sharks will come to investigate sooner or later. I'm not sure if that predates Randy doing these sorts of dives, but given that we've known for the past 50-60 years that shooting fish and strapping them to you makes for a high probability of shark encounters, I'd say probably yes.

I'd have to agree with HDaze on this one. I would assume any spearfisherman out on the deep ledge knows the risks of spearing around sharks or having dangling fish on a stringer. Thats probably why most of them use lift bags to save there catch.

Thanks for all the comments everyone, hope to see you out on the water soon. I'm going out Saturday AM.

---------- Post added August 1st, 2013 at 11:01 AM ----------

Here is the study I was talking about. Doesn't exactly have to do with the sharks in my video, but sharks behavior patterns.

Research on the effect of ecotourism on tiger shark behavior - The Dorsal Fin ? Shark News

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I agree with you about the hammerhead being on the "skinny" side for it's length. As for which species it is hard for me to tell as well, I was just going by the consensus of all the divers on the boat. All the scalloped hammers I've seen have been from a distance as well.

This is a pretty good visual ID resource - Shark Pictures - images of sharks and rays including pictures of great white sharks, tiger sharks, hammerheads and more. I've been poring over that site trying to separate out the duskies and silkies in my pics from a couple weeks ago. The two cues for great hammerheads seem to be the extremely tall, pointed dorsal (they're sometimes called sicklefins for that reason) and the "hammer" is more rectangular and (to me) proportionally smaller. There's little or no sweep whatsoever to the forward edge, although there are still a few bumps and dents. Great Hammerhead Shark Pictures

As far as "conditioning" the sharks, I've done a fair bit of diving at Shark Canyon off West Palm, plus a cage snorkel off Oahu and a "reef fish extravaganza" in Bimini (read: "we can't call it a shark feeding because the University liability people would crap bricks") - all of which were sites where the sharks got fed on a routine basis. From personal experience and talking to others, if you're not shooting or carrying bait you may get a cursory inspection; if you have something you will get attention. To me that says they're reacting to the presence of food, not learning to associate handouts with submerged beach apes. Once the food is gone, they split like cats after dinnertime.

I'll grant that the sharks that show up for Randy's dives will get up close and personal; I'm going to remember the fellow (not sure if he's a dusky or silky) Randy called "Bling Bling" after I looked up from my camera on two occasions and found him seemingly about to nuzzle my face. I decided both times to address this personal space violation with a firm downward shove to the top of his head, which worked quite well. It wasn't an aggressive approach; I just didn't feel my Olympus housing was big enough to use as a blocking device and like guns and knives, I prefer not to have the business end of a shark in my face at close range. Including those instances though, I didn't see anything that I would characterize as agitated, frenzied, or aggressive behavior - no jerky movements, no ganging up on or rushing divers and bait, and only one instance of a sandbar shark snapping at some drifting algae (maybe he wanted a salad on the side). And again - once the food was gone, they lost interest in us.

As a further note, and I've stated this before - in my opinion, if you're shooting fish out in 130 feet of water and a ripping current, sharks are about three or four slots down on your list of worries. Worry #1 is being found by the boat at the end of the dive.