robo
Registered
Last year on a pre lobster season recon dive in shallow water, 12-15 ft, about a quarter mile off the beach, my friend and I had a hairy encounter. I have seen a few bull sharks and hammerheads, but this was by far the biggest and chunkiest, estimated at 10ft long and about 3-4 feet in diameter.
It went like this: We dropped in and right in front of me was a nice red grouper just looking at me. Bam, pole spear in the head, into the bag he went. A few minutes later, he was joined with his buddy, a few minutes later a nice snapper, followed by a couple of sheepshead.
Looked to the side and about twenty feet to the left was mr. tiger shark, swimming right along with us. I signal my buddy and his eyes about bulged out of his head. Together we looked like a big object, and the shark moved out to about thirty feet away and started circling us. He was keeping his distance and I felt secure on the bottom, but with 700 psi left, it was time to get outta there.
We were about a hundred yards away from my anchored boat with my wife in it, and we needed to surface to get a fix to navigate back. So I signaled my buddy and I surfaced while he watched my back, with a pole spear and a three prong paralyzer gig tip. Located the boat, got a bearing and dropped back down. Shark closing in, now circling at twenty feet.
My dilemna was should i cut loose the fish, or hang on to it until we were ready to board the boat. I figured that the shark would gulp down my fish as an appetizer, and possibly get agressive, and with no more fish to feed it, well you know what would come next. Mind you that in the process of subduing the fish with the pole spear, I was covered in slime and blood, and probably gave off more scent than the bag of fish. So i decided to hold on to the bag and cut it loose at the right moment.
We were tooling along at the course set to the boat, praying we would see the anchor line. Well, we didnt, and it was time to pop up again. So we did, and we passed the boat, now we were thirty yard past, so I yelled to my wife to tie off the anchor line to a life jacket, toss it, fire up the boat, and come get us. I didnt tell her why. By this time the shark was circling about 15 feet away, and was occaisionally coming in a little closer. We saw the boat and it was our time to surface. My buddy signaled for me to go first, so at the surface I opened the bag, and shook the fish towards the shark. The fish slid down right in front of the shark, but he didnt locate them, then in a flash he snatched the bag sinking toward the bottom about ten feet from me, shook it to pieces like a pit bull with a toy poodle, spit it out and zoomed right up to us and stopped. He looked pissed.
I shot out of the water onto the platform like a missile while my friend had the spear inches form the sharks nose. He then launched up, getting his body about half way into the outboard splash well, with his legs flapping at the surface. My wife grabbed his bc and was trying to pull him in. But a hundred pound woman is not going to pull in a big 225lb guy with full gear on. He was screaming for help. I rolled into the boat, grabbed onto him, and pulled him in.
We did not see the shark again, it did not surface.
So, does anyone have any suggestions (besides not spearfishing)? Should I have cut loose the fish at first, poked him in the nose with the Spear? I reckoned that the spear would just piss him off and make things worse.
In retrospect, I was awed by the shark, and was not really afraid. I was heavily concerned however, and just wanted to make the right decision. My buddy is now armed to the teeth with powerheads in case of a similar encounter, but I would not want to kill an awesome, beautiful, magnificent creature like this just because he was curious or a little hungry. Of course if it was me or him, well, shark stakes for everyone.
What would you have done?
It went like this: We dropped in and right in front of me was a nice red grouper just looking at me. Bam, pole spear in the head, into the bag he went. A few minutes later, he was joined with his buddy, a few minutes later a nice snapper, followed by a couple of sheepshead.
Looked to the side and about twenty feet to the left was mr. tiger shark, swimming right along with us. I signal my buddy and his eyes about bulged out of his head. Together we looked like a big object, and the shark moved out to about thirty feet away and started circling us. He was keeping his distance and I felt secure on the bottom, but with 700 psi left, it was time to get outta there.
We were about a hundred yards away from my anchored boat with my wife in it, and we needed to surface to get a fix to navigate back. So I signaled my buddy and I surfaced while he watched my back, with a pole spear and a three prong paralyzer gig tip. Located the boat, got a bearing and dropped back down. Shark closing in, now circling at twenty feet.
My dilemna was should i cut loose the fish, or hang on to it until we were ready to board the boat. I figured that the shark would gulp down my fish as an appetizer, and possibly get agressive, and with no more fish to feed it, well you know what would come next. Mind you that in the process of subduing the fish with the pole spear, I was covered in slime and blood, and probably gave off more scent than the bag of fish. So i decided to hold on to the bag and cut it loose at the right moment.
We were tooling along at the course set to the boat, praying we would see the anchor line. Well, we didnt, and it was time to pop up again. So we did, and we passed the boat, now we were thirty yard past, so I yelled to my wife to tie off the anchor line to a life jacket, toss it, fire up the boat, and come get us. I didnt tell her why. By this time the shark was circling about 15 feet away, and was occaisionally coming in a little closer. We saw the boat and it was our time to surface. My buddy signaled for me to go first, so at the surface I opened the bag, and shook the fish towards the shark. The fish slid down right in front of the shark, but he didnt locate them, then in a flash he snatched the bag sinking toward the bottom about ten feet from me, shook it to pieces like a pit bull with a toy poodle, spit it out and zoomed right up to us and stopped. He looked pissed.
I shot out of the water onto the platform like a missile while my friend had the spear inches form the sharks nose. He then launched up, getting his body about half way into the outboard splash well, with his legs flapping at the surface. My wife grabbed his bc and was trying to pull him in. But a hundred pound woman is not going to pull in a big 225lb guy with full gear on. He was screaming for help. I rolled into the boat, grabbed onto him, and pulled him in.
We did not see the shark again, it did not surface.
So, does anyone have any suggestions (besides not spearfishing)? Should I have cut loose the fish at first, poked him in the nose with the Spear? I reckoned that the spear would just piss him off and make things worse.
In retrospect, I was awed by the shark, and was not really afraid. I was heavily concerned however, and just wanted to make the right decision. My buddy is now armed to the teeth with powerheads in case of a similar encounter, but I would not want to kill an awesome, beautiful, magnificent creature like this just because he was curious or a little hungry. Of course if it was me or him, well, shark stakes for everyone.
What would you have done?
Nice story, wouldn't want to live it at all.
