7 Foot Bull Shark Attacks Diver Off Riviera Beach

[drrich2]

It amazes me this goes well enough to have become a fairly common regional practice, and makes we wonder at what point something goes past 'adventure sport, with 'take it or leave it' inherent risks,' into the realm of foolish recklessness.

I'm not advocating banning it. I'm a fan of competent adults making informed decisions pertaining to themselves.

Presumably people worked their way up to this practice over a period of time, with a few pioneers paving the way? I suspect that's how scary practices like cageless diving with tiger & oceanic white-tip sharks got their start, too.

To me, who's never done it, it sounds like someone discovering rabbits follow grizzly bears around (I made that up), who baits in bears with a little bloody meat and uses a cross bow to nail rabbits following them, reeling in the thrashing, bleeding rabbit in the presence of the bear.

Bull sharks & grizzly bears are extremely unrelated biologically, and large marine and land predator behavior often differs. But the main difference readily observable with this situation seems to be 'other people do it & it usually goes okay.'

Richard.

 

[sheeper]

well, i'm not going to say there is a right way to do this. i have taken cobia off the backs of sharks but have never chummed for them. it is an intense and dangerous hunt nevertheless. I only did this with very experienced hunters with a team approach. each of us stayed aware of the team. when one hunter hit a cobia, the other divers circle around scaring the sharks off.

in truth, i've opted not to do this again. a little too high energy for me.

 

[uncfnp]

Clearly this hunter (spearo) is not primarily in this for the fish but rather the thrill.

I am all for spearing for food but this activity is on a whole different level. I am like Richard, his life his risk, but I have no plan to contribute to his GoFundMe account.

 

[scagrotto]

This guy has inspired me. From now on I'm going to get all of my steak with a pocket knife during the running of the bulls in Pamplona.

 

[Johnoly]

... This is just nutzoid...

Pete you know I'm a spearo and I shoot Cobes also.

Your comment is very similar depending on what type of diving background you have. Allow me to demonstrate:

A freediver dives on a single breathe to 830ft, that's Nuts

A cave diver swims 2 miles underground with no direct surfacing, that's Nuts

A CCR diver rebreathes the same air for an hour, that's Nuts

Stig Severinsen held his breathe for 22 minutes,,that's Nuts.

Things that you and I do diving day in and day, out we're used to and not only is it no big deal & easy to us, but its Nuts too !! What's nuts to one diver, is easy to another with training.

 

[The Chairman]

Pete you know I'm a spearo and I shoot Cobes also.

I'm a pescavore and sometimes I spear... no doubt about it. Chumming and then swimming in that chum seem ludicrous to me. It's as bad as diving for lobster in the Keys during mini=season. I'm going to do something ultra safe... like dive a rebreather... in a cave.

 

[drrich2]

For the benefit of the many fairly new or sporadic, mainstream recreational divers who come to the forum, I think there's value in identifying activities that are 'at the edge' and can be highly dangerous, whether what these guys were doing, or cave diving (I've noticed some in the cave diving community make it a point to try to convey to OW divers that without proper cave training & adherence to good practices, cave diving is deadly.

Put another way, the list of things Johnoly mentioned would be nuts to the majority of divers.

How well seasoned, advanced divers trained in this activity can mitigate the inherent risks is probably hard to quantify, which less reach a consensus on.

Reminds me of that free-diving shark conservationist woman who got some publicity riding a large great white shark by holding onto its dorsal fin. That was controversial, too.

How does one quantify the degree of dangerousness?

Richard.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Hard to answer that question. I had a conversation about cobia shooting with a friend of mine last year; back before the Esso Bonaire wreck off Jupiter was a site for shark-feeding dives he and some other divers would shoot cobia on that wreck. One diver would use a rock pile about 100 ft away from the wreck as a blind and another would strap a bunch of bait to his scooter, find some bull sharks with cobia, and lead them over to the rock pile. Less than six months after he told me that story he died in what to my knowledge was a run-of-the-mill diving accident - went down for lobsters, missed his ETA on the surface, and was found dead on the bottom. I'll dive with bait and sharks and may someday try my hand at cobia shooting, but in my mind the fact that we go into an environment that evolution never prepared us for is way more hazardous than any animal in the water. I can react to animal behavior. The laws of physics and physiology are a lot more inexorable.

 

[Joneill]

I can react to animal behavior. The laws of physics and physiology are a lot more inexorable.

You can quite easily understand and plan for the laws of physics and physiology. How far you push against those laws depends of your appetite for risk, but boundaries/safety margins are determinable with pretty high confidence.

Animal behavior on the other hand can be quite unpredictable and any given animal might deviate from the common/expected behavior at any time - no way to really plan for that, as evidenced by this guy's arm: He's lucky the shark didn't kill him! However, his life, so he's free to do what he wants - but this is definitely very risky activity.

 

[uncfnp]

Hard to answer that question. I had a conversation about cobia shooting with a friend of mine last year; back before the Esso Bonaire wreck off Jupiter was a site for shark-feeding dives he and some other divers would shoot cobia on that wreck. One diver would use a rock pile about 100 ft away from the wreck as a blind and another would strap a bunch of bait to his scooter, find some bull sharks with cobia, and lead them over to the rock pile. Less than six months after he told me that story he died in what to my knowledge was a run-of-the-mill diving accident - went down for lobsters, missed his ETA on the surface, and was found dead on the bottom. I'll dive with bait and sharks and may someday try my hand at cobia shooting, but in my mind the fact that we go into an environment that evolution never prepared us for is way more hazardous than any animal in the water. I can react to animal behavior. The laws of physics and physiology are a lot more inexorable.

But we are not talking one verses the other here but both factors compounding the risk, diving and predator behavior.