To Hit the Nose or Not to Hit the Nose

[DiverBuoy]

Great post Johnoly!

Your regulator is indeed your best friend. No marine creature likes bubbles. This includes turtles, sharks, gators, fish... you name it! Forget swimming... they like playing catch. Forget your knife... they have LOTS of them disguised as teeth.

Of course be confident in your regular maintenance and servicing of your regulators so you don't create a second potential disaster with a free-flow you can't arrest (see My first underwater emergency thread for discussion of free-flow).

 

[David A]

Unless you are spearfishing, as a diver you are very unlikely to run into an unwanted dangerous situation. If you are spearfishing, dumping your catch will generally give them what they want.
If, like me, you have encountered sharks on purpose by baiting the water, you'll notice that generally they are very measured in their approach. They know what they want, and you aren't it. If they do get closer than you like, let them bump into something that puts them off. If you have a large camera rig like me, that does the trick. If not, a metre long plastic stick, held so that they bump into the side of it, also works. They seem to regard it as something quite large. If you poke them with the end of it however, it is a very small surface, and merely seems to cause the nictitating membrane to roll over their eye, and a bite response to follow.
I only have experience with tigers, bulls, great hammerheads, oceanic whitetips, and the more docile species.
Great whites are a different matter. I don't mean by that that they are psychotic monsters, but their size makes the difference. If you encounter one as a diver by chance, and you are not spearing, it will almost certainly just cruise on by, and you can count that as one of your best encounters. If it makes a mistake, and you get caught in an attack, you would be lucky to get a punch, poke, prod or anything else to find the target. They are big fish, and a test bite will damage you.
Luckily, it doesn't happen very often. More people are killed by dogs every year than have ever been killed by sharks.
Now how the hell do you stop a mad chihuahua?

David

 

[RockPile]

Now how the hell do you stop a mad chihuahua?

Yeah, powerheads are frowned on... I just run.

 

[archman]

What I've seen and read suggested that sharks' electrical receptors converge in their noses, thus making that spot a kind of soft spot. That's dated information, however, and when I see footage of sharks slamming into test dummies, etc, it doesn't seem to bother them much.

This is fairly accurate. The ampullae are focused on the snout of most species.

The majority of sharks don't like surprises. They spook for a nothing. One of my old commercial diver pals used to term them "cowardly creatures" and had all sorts of stories involving her smacking sharks in the face to get rid of them.

Among the more effective of the "Sea Hunt Era" anti-shark tools was the Billy Stick. It's nothing more than a wood or plastic nightstick 1-2 feet long, and you'd use it to whack sharks in the face. Accounts of their usefulness were very positive.

 

[Johnoly]

..............If you are spearfishing, dumping your catch will generally give them what they want.
David

I have to strongly disagree with dumping your fish. You never give up your fish when spearfishing. The sharks will tear through it in less than 5 seconds and a dropped fish will only sink a few feet from you. That shark will then come back to the source, in a feeding frenzy, looking for more and it has now associated you with fish. Let alone, since your speared fish was probably bleeding and that scent is now on you or your wetsuit, you are now the meal ticket and that frenzy'd shark has just attracted even more attention by thrashing on the dropped fish.

If you are in 80 to 100 feet of water at the time of the approach, this also is no time for a rapid ascent and skipping a long 3 minute safety stop. You need to chase down and close the distance on the very first sniffing by a shark. Never panic, Never drop your fish.

 

[David A]

I have to strongly disagree with dumping your fish. You never give up your fish when spearfishing. The sharks will tear through it in less than 5 seconds and a dropped fish will only sink a few feet from you. That shark will then come back to the source, in a feeding frenzy, looking for more and it has now associated you with fish. Let alone, since your speared fish was probably bleeding and that scent is now on you or your wetsuit, you are now the meal ticket and that frenzy'd shark has just attracted even more attention by thrashing on the dropped fish.

If you are in 80 to 100 feet of water at the time of the approach, this also is no time for a rapid ascent and skipping a long 3 minute safety stop. You need to chase down and close the distance on the very first sniffing by a shark. Never panic, Never drop your fish.

I have to bow to your experience here. I don't spearfish, and was working only on experience I've had talking to spearfishermen who felt they had no choice but to dump the catch. They were being chased by bulls, and on one case a great hammerhead, and on those occasions felt that dumping the catch definitely helped, but I am relating someone else story here, not my own.
Diving with them resulted in no such problems.