What would you do for a sheepshead?

[RickI]

Soon to be ex-sheepshead


Last time I looked, seemed like sheepsheads were all over the place in the Intracoastal. Didn't realize they were prized by spearfishermen. Then again some guys nail triggers and in this country too. It is interesting the guy shot one and then towed it into shore submerged in the water and with some interesting company. Even after the shark showed up, the guy kept the fish in the water.

Diver is distracted dealing with the fish, look what makes a close pass behind his back.



Here's the complete video the stills came from:

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This is what the diver had to say about it:

"Check out what happened to me while spearfishing off of Palm Beach, FL. The blacktip shark and I both wanted the sheepshead that I shot. Despite hitting him several times and showing aggression he wouldn't leave me alone. Fortunately I won the battle and for dinner that night I had one of the best tasting fish I have eaten in a while. The whole encounter lasted about 13 minutes, that's when I finally made it back to shore."

So, what would you do for a sheepshead, how about a Klondike bar? Or, looking at it another way, would you bait a natural selection trap with a sheepshead?

.

 

[RickI]

So, there were no mistakes in this worth talking about? Seems like it contains some nice object lessons for newer folks into shooting fish.

 

[ONESPEED]

Holy crap, I just watched the video, the stills don't do this incident justice. What a spazz.

 

[DebbyDiver]

The first thing that pops into my mind is a three-syllable word that begins with cluster.

 

[RickI]

Let me take a stab at it, having quit spearfishing for non-sustainability reasons way back, I may be a bit rusty. Good thing we have a lot more and larger fish to kill today, right?

1. He was planning on carrying any fish he nailed back into shore on an in-water fish stringer. Best to have a fish bucket in an inner tube, kayak, whatever. Just don't plan on leaving them in the water.

2. Once the guy noticed the shark, he didn't seem to panic, that was a good thing. Have no clue why he didn't lift the fish out of the water. It isn't a perfect solution but a common one worth trying.

3. Or, even better, just throw the damn sheepshead to the shark pronto. Hanging on to a common fish through repeated runs defies ready understanding. The shark could have taken a nice bite out of the guy pretty much at anytime, it has happened before.

4. The video is from March, if the dive was close to then, then there was a good chance the shark migration was on off Palm Beach. Thousands of these guys were cruising north close to shore, an annual thing and well publicized in the media and with beach closures. Good time to play bait with your catch swimming offshore? Best part, the one shark could have been readily joined by quite a few others if a migration was passing by.

5. He was surprised that aggressive actions didn't deter the shark. Why should they with a bleeding fish in the water?

There are still more things.

 

[DebbyDiver]

There are still more things.

The enganglement hazard gives me the chills as much as the shark does.

Losing the knife was stupid too.

 

[soamelt]

Main thing I see is the entanglement. Other then that, I probably wouldn't have shot that fish by a shark while by myself (probably wouldn't shoot it off a shark regardless).

 

[letterboy]

I like sheep, wish they came from vending machines also.

 

[sean_nc]

Let me take a stab at it, having quit spearfishing for non-sustainability reasons way back, I may be a bit rusty. Good thing we have a lot more and larger fish to kill today, right?

1. He was planning on carrying any fish he nailed back into shore on an in-water fish stringer. Best to have a fish bucket in an inner tube, kayak, whatever. Just don't plan on leaving them in the water.

2. Once the guy noticed the shark, he didn't seem to panic, that was a good thing. Have no clue why he didn't lift the fish out of the water. It isn't a perfect solution but a common one worth trying.

3. Or, even better, just throw the damn sheepshead to the shark pronto. Hanging on to a common fish through repeated runs defies ready understanding. The shark could have taken a nice bite out of the guy pretty much at anytime, it has happened before.

4. The video is from March, if the dive was close to then, then there was a good chance the shark migration was on off Palm Beach. Thousands of these guys were cruising north close to shore, an annual thing and well publicized in the media and with beach closures. Good time to play bait with your catch swimming offshore? Best part, the one shark could have been readily joined by quite a few others if a migration was passing by.

5. He was surprised that aggressive actions didn't deter the shark. Why should they with a bleeding fish in the water?

There are still more things.

Things are different here. Those may all be valid points in FL but things seem to work a little differently here in NC from what I can tell.

I'm not done much spearfishing but I was along observing some spearfishing last weekend.
1. It's a lot harder to take fish up to a bucket when your on a wreck at 100' My buddy did hand off the fish to a skin diver on our safety stop to get it out of the water.

2. I've heard lots of times for the sharks around here you don't give up the fish unless it's absolutely necessary. Don't train them that divers have food.

3. A little aggressiveness can change the sharks attitude, I saw it a couple of times last weekend. A poke from the speargun moved along a curious baracuda too.

4. I've seen 2 occasions where my buddy had a flopping bleeding fish on a stringer on his waist, a Sand Tiger came around the corner moving briskly and stopped in his tracks when he saw big divers not just a little fish. ...I was glad.

Just wanted to point out there are different sharks and different methods in different places.

 

[RickI]

You could have a lot more line than that floating around and as long as it isn't anchored to the bottom, it shouldn't amount to much for a free diver without tanks to tangle. We have pools of the stuff, hundreds of feet from kites in the water not that uncommonly while kitesurfing. If you were thrashing around in it could become a problem. The diver seemed calm throughout.