Im a surfer and i think i kicked a shark. Someone let me know if im right or crazy

[masternorris]

My foot got scratched swimming was it a shark?

So yesterday i was out at long beach island new jersey. I was surfing. The weather was kinda nasty and the water was pretty rough. I was out just a little bit past the break at high tide so it was pretty far out for a surfer. I was swimming forward when i fell off my board and something hit my foot in the water. It felt like a fish swimming the other direction( the water was 7ft deep so im pretty sure it was a fish and not something floating or on the bottom). Needless to say i was pretty spooked so i caught the next wave i could and got out to the shore. On the beach i looked at my food and it had been scratched up. Nothing major but whatever hit my foot was tough enough to cut it in a few different places. I have been wondering what did it. I suspect it might be a brown shark. From what ive heard they are pretty common in the area and the part of the ocean i was surfing. I was wondering if someone on the forum could give me an idea of what it might have been. Was it a shark or some other type of fish or something im not thinking of. Any insight would be appreciated. Ill attack a picture of the scratch on my foot. it goes from high up on my foot down to my pinky toe.

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[lajoyce]

It really could be anything. Several years ago I was surfing with a buddy during a rough day in late August or September on Long Island. We were paddling out maybe 7' away from each other, and duck dived under a good sized wave. We pop up and my buddy turns, and flips out, saying "what the f! you skegged me!" I told him I hadn't gotten within 5' of him, but we're puzzled, because his calf is clearly cscratched up. There's a good period between waves, and we see the surface kind of rippling behind us, so we paddle over to look. There is A TREE TRUNK just below the surface. Somehow this tree trunk, we couldn't even tell how long it was but it was long, floating below the surface, parallel to the break, rolled over us while duck diving and scratched up my buddy's leg. And didn't crush us. We saw it at the same time, didn't say a word to each other and got the F outta the ocean for the day. There had been a hurricane or tropical storms in Florida earlier that week. Even typing this now I can remember the fear-dread at the time, imagining a wave dropping the tree trunk onto us.

 

[Jersey]

Given Hurricane Sandy last year there is a ton of debris just off shore. Been finding stuff since that time - found a whale vertebra a week after the storm, household goods over winter, chunks of asphalt/concrete/cement, broken glass who knows what is out there? That said, sure it could have been a shark, we've had a bunch of them this summer, including Great Whites. Sharks are always out there, Delaware Bay is a spawning ground for several species.