Big Shark

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
In all the scuba diving I did in Okinawa, I saw one shark. Not sure of type, but it wasn't more than 3 feet long. WW2 mines,? Saw several of those!
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
I've never seen a great white, but used to scuba dive off a couple of the Channel Islands and been in the water many times with angel sharks, blues and leopards. While I never felt that I was about to be attacked, I always looked for posture and swim pattern changes.
The sea lions were a greater danger. One of their favorite games was to swim straight at you like a torpedo at 20 MPH or so and turn aside at the last second. On rare occasions divers got sideswiped and suffered fairly serious injuries.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
I used to fish off Anacapa Island and yep, Blue Sharks are not in short supply. Not the most aggressive type but still . . . Not good playmates.
 

Joshua

Taco Aficionado/Salish Sea Pirate/Part-Time Dragon
I have been touched by curious harbor seals on three different occasions. Poked one of them in the nose with my unloaded spear gun, we where abalone diving north of the Russian River, he had nosed/bit my fins multiple times!

I had a pair of river otters get to with in three feet of me a few years ago. When I was diving for red rock crabs.

I have a friend who scuba dives, I only free dive, well he was on the bottom with a full stringer of rockfish. A sea lion decided it was a catered lunch and started in on his stringer. He said that he poked it pretty hard with his spear tip, it finally left him alone.

These are all decent sized carnivores, sometimes they are just playing, and sometimes people loose fingers & eyes!
 

Rockydoc

Well-Known Member
In Washington we have a small shark called a spiny dogfish, they are a bi-catch, annoyance when fishing for salmon. I enjoy catching any fish, I just release them and keep fishing. Some folks have a deep hatred of these small sharks. The English eat them as fish and chips.
Spiny Dogfish were disected in a Comparative Anatomy class in the biology curriculum at university 65 years ago. I didn't realize they were considered endangered now, so they may not still be used.
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Our policy when diving and carrying a "goodie bag" full of abalone, scallops, fish, lobster or whatever, was to put up some reasonable resistance to sea lions, but if a shark got a little too curious, drop the goodie bag and casually, watchfully and deliberately head for the boat. I never had to do that. Kicked at sea lions a couple of times and that was it.
You had to use a lot of common sense and gut instinct. A sea lion has a bite at least as bad and often worse than a large dog.
 

Glaciers

Alaska Land of the Midnight Sun
The thought of Getting into the ocean waters always reminds me of feeding time in a fish tank. Except you are the feed on the surface. I don't get in the water. There's the Nature Chanel for checking out the depths.
 

Jeff H

NW Ohio
The thought of Getting into the ocean waters always reminds me of feeding time in a fish tank. Except you are the feed on the surface. I don't get in the water. There's the Nature Chanel for checking out the depths.
That just inspired a Gary Larson-esque visual.:rofl:
 

Jeff H

NW Ohio
There used to be a buyer for dog fish in Tacoma that would send them to Australia for fish and chips.
35+ years ago, we used to put in somewhere between Olympia and Tacoma - don't even remember where now.

I was just relating a story to a friend yesterday, where we had gone out the Sunday after Thanksgiving and caught one dogfish for every cod we caught. Threw the dogfish back. I didn't know squat about that kind of fishing and did what the cap'n (ironically, he WAS a Captain - in the Army) said to do. Kept all the cod, left the dogfish. They just looked like miniature sharks to me.

The wind kicked up and we had a heck of a time getting that 19' boat back to shore. Rough ride, but we has a nice mess of cod and a gal from Arkansas cooked them up while we dried off and warmed up the rest of the afternoon.