Spearfishing with Bull Sharks 04-23-09

[MRXRAY]

Don't take my reply negatively. As you stated this is a learning experience for all. I'm a sponge and anything I can learn from you will make me a better diver, so keep the input coming! It's good to hear that your shark encounters ended in sharks swimmng and you keeping your fish. Sounds like I need to grow a pair! But with that said I am still thinking of seperating my catch from me via a lift bag or tying my fish to the anchor. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[jhayes75]

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We (my core group of spearing friends) tend to average one overly curious shark in every 10 dives requiring a poke or two to get rid of. About 1/5 of those are aggressive (fins down back arched and swimming with rapid jerky movements).

This just makes me want to go out and buy a speargun. Most divers are lucky to even see a shark in there life time, but 1 out of every ten dives. Have fun playing tug a war with the bulls.

 

[HateCheese]

This just makes me want to go out and buy a speargun. Most divers are lucky to even see a shark in there life time, but 1 out of every ten dives. Have fun playing tug a war with the bulls.

The past two summers I would see sharks on 1/2 - 1/4 my dives while spearing. Usually bulls. I remember thinking how nice it was when one didn't show up on a full day of diving.

I agree w/ Capt Pat. Not trying to criticize the original poster, but I don't want to contribute to having sharks associate divers with food. And I don't want sharks coming at me aggressively thinking I will feed them. An aggressive posture is what I try to do. Either that or clip my stringer to my dive buddy

Over the past few years I've considered:
Sharkshield
Bagging fish on a stringer
Powerhead
Lift bag
Clipping stringer to end of gun (try to take a bite and get jabbed)
Start doing video of sharks

Not sure what I'll really end up trying. Kind of takes the fun out of a dive when you continually run into sharks.

 

[Walter]

I don't have anywhere close to the experience Pat does diving with aggressive sharks, but what little experience I do have confirms everything he's said. Above all, do not act like prey, act like you are the baddest thing in the water.

 

[MRXRAY]

I think the reason the shark poking didn't work is because since I had to bail with my buddies due to them having a low air issue I did not get a chance to reload my gun. So I was holding the shaft along side the gun so when I poked the shark I was just pushing him with the blunt end of my wooden speargun....Which seemed to have no real effect, I actually had to steer him away from me, and the whole thing transpired so quickly that I never got time to reload my gun. In hind site I think poking him with the spear tip may have been more effective, but that's just something I've replayed 100 times that I could've or should've done differently.

Pat, And others I'd like to hear how you all hang your fish. Do you keep 'em close? Bag 'em and float 'em? Tie 'em to the anchor? What?

 

[PatMyGreen]

My fish are on my hoop stringer which is clipped to my "d" ring on the right side of my BCD. I am left handed so it is usually the left hand that grabs the gills and brings the fish's eye to the shank of the stringer, which is how I open it to avoid any possible mishaps. (I lost a few fish when I was first learning to shoot when it came time to string them.) I know a few people who keep a deliberately weak link in the attachment to the BCD in case it needs to be cut for one reason or another. I do not do this figuring anything bad enough to make me want to cut the stringer free of my person will probably rip the d ring faster than I could get to my knife and begin surgery. A few of the commercial guys I know have been jerked around by sharks that got their stringers without them seeing the approach, stringers that were attached to their BCDs......... and everyone one of them now carries the stringer by hand to keep it in front of them and away from dangling by their legs. I haven't learned that lesson yet.


I personally don't like the idea of leaving the fish unattended or having to return to the anchor line everytime I shoot a fish. Being aggressive works well for me (FYI I'm alittle guy at 5'10" 150, or the same mass as a 7' sandbar, bigger if you add in the longblades, 52" commercial gun and the lp108).
We use lift bags for big AJs and grouper when we are live boating, but thats more for convenience than sharks. 70#AJs and multiple large grouper are hard to swim with, especially in a current. The guys on the East coast of the state by Jupiter use lift bags out of necessity, there are no places more filled with bull sharks with no respect for divers than down there and they have learned to pack hunt in recent years, our bulls and sand bars are not as advanced, socially. If you don't have a boat circling to pick up the bags you have likely just moved the potential shark encounter to the surface where you will b doing your "safety" stop.

My gear is in the pick, although I don't normally carry the lift bag where it is in the pic. FYI Dive Rite makes a great compression sleeve for lift bags to keep them out of the way.

 

[MRXRAY]

Good info! Thanks. Next question. Do you think that AJ's are more attractive a bait to Sharks since it seems they bleed more even after being killed? Also how do you kill your fish post shooting in order to calm them, I've heard several different methods, but I'd love to hear yours.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Spike to the brain does the trick. Next time you take an AJ, slice its head open and you can see exactly where the brain is located. Its just a bit behind the eye, slightly low from the eyes midline.

 

[PatMyGreen]

Spike to the brain does the trick. Next time you take an AJ, slice its head open and you can see exactly where the brain is located. Its just a bit behind the eye, slightly low from the eyes midline.

Exactly. I knife them in the brain from the top of the head well behind the eyes. If you go too far back you still sever the spine but too far forward and nothing significant happens. I honestly think blood is the least important factor when compared to the fight an AJ puts out. Next smaller (20 -34") inshore AJs congregate on higher relief sites like popular artificial reefs that are more popular to divers than low relief hardbottom, and easier to find. The more life a site has the more likely it is to be a regular haunt of a patroling shark. So these sites dramatically up the odds of seeing a shark. Especially if spearos go there with any regularity, like the public numbers around here during the warm months.

That said there is nothing sharkier than an area with lots of limestone to hold large amounts of reef fish. Local guys here in PCB know that the areas off to the west are the sharkiest place to go spearing due to the density of the reef (limestone) sites. Several spots off of Sea Grove Beach are great for getting 2 or more sharks to come in on you at the same time. These are places that hold almost no AJs and certainly none that are legal, much less decent.

 

[kalik]

Thanks Pat I have been spearing here for 5 years now regularly and I still learn new tricks every day. And I totally agree about SeaGrove.....Thanks again for the insite K