After reading the death of that 14yr old girl this last weekend in Destin Florida, I was just wondering if anyone here on this forum has ever had any type of encounter with a shark?

When i dive/spearfish at the rig's off the Lousisiana coast i see them all the time. I try to get close enough to take a shot at them, but they haul a$$

I have seen a few in the Gulf off the coast of St. Petersburg. I followed about a 9 ft black shark one day. I couldn't hang, those things can move!!!

we see them all the time at the Destin Jetties, big ones, small ones; short ones, tall ones

Hulk, Have you ever speared a tuna?

Did you read about the guy who speared the 400 lb warsaw grouper in 400'?

I'll post a link to the story if you haven't read it. Pretty awesome.

There was another attack in Panama city today...it is definitely the bull sharks. It was 6 footer that killed the girl and the boy got attacked by a smaller bull in P-city.

Unreal.

There was another attack today.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/27/shark.attack/index.html

Superd, post the grouper link. I have not seen it

Holy cow! I'm going to Panama City this weekend! Guess I'll stay on the beach.

No David..just stay away from schools of baitfish. The bull sharks don't know what is bait and what is not. This very rare down here..I swear. 2 attacks in 2 days, I bet there will no one in the water by this weekend.

The news said she was boogie boarding 200 ft out? Why would you boogie board 200ft out from shore.

She was using the boogie board as a float...past the second sand bar, her legs were flailing in the water, the shark thought it was lunch and attacked. The guy who tried to rescued her, said the blood was covering the water and he could'nt see the shark until it came up.

Bull sharks are stupid, they don't have the normal fear like a mako, sand, blue and other sharks in our area. They come in groups every couple of years and this is what we get. I am going tomorrow to the jetties and see if they are swarming out there.

I have jumped waves and seen them whilst I was in the air. I have seen them swim by while riding my ski, I have ssen while I was snorkeling. But, they always run. It will pass, just don't know until they leave.

We see a fair amount down in these parts too. Recently it was schools of hammerheads migrating. Went diving in John Pennekamp for Father's Day and we came across about a 5ft nurse shark near the statue, but they're harmless. It moved away whenever we tried to get close to it.

Me and a buddy were riding just north of Dunedin causeway and went right over the top of a ten foot hammerhead shark.

Posted - 06/24/2005 : 02:16:46 AM
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Don't mean to hijack the thread. See if this works.

http://www.spearboard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18867

I'll paste the story in a second.

Here's the guys write up.

By HeadHunter
Dan MacMahon
Do I shoot or do I run!!!
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OK..here we go. Heres the story on the big warsaw first. Last year, SpearTen, Steve Simkins and I did a dive in 415' on a pinnacle in the 72 Fathom Peaks area. The mission was to finally get the big Warsaw I've wanted all my life. The dive basically sucked, 4 feet of viz and darker than midnight.

I spent the last year plotting and planning. New and better equipment, lots of designing and testing of everything. Finally got it all done, planned the trip out and we loaded down HeadHunter with 60 tanks, 10 stage bottles, 4 O2 bottles, 400 gallons of diesel, 3000 lbs of ice and about 5 million pounds of misc equipment. Hell, Kmoose's food and drinks weighed 100 LBS!

Along on the trip were myself, Spearten, SimplyScuba, Jazzien, BucketOne and the Moose. We left port Wednesday evening and SpearTen and I did the 425' dive around 11:00 Friday morning. It was a neap tide and I prayed for fish, viz and low current.

We got to the wreck, a huge freighter that stood 50 feet high in 425 feet. It had a great fish show on it and we all just kinda stared at the color screen. Kevin Bruington had made me one of his custom buoys (thanks Kev) and we pitched it to the wreck with 32 Lbs of lead. Direct hit! Great!

SpearTen and I geared up, 5 tanks, 5 regs and all the other tech gear the dive required. We rolled and began the 3 minute descent. On a deep ocean dive like this, you never know what water conditions are until you descend as they can change every few feet. Perfect conditions!!! Perfect! The wreck came into view around 250 feet and we touched down at 375' on the deck. With no BS, I've never dove in any clearer water anywhere at anytime. You could see 150 feet plus in any direction and it was light and blue, no lights needed.

There were a half dozen Warsaws in the 40-100 Lb range close to us when I spotted the monster facing me about 100 feet away. I got my bouyancy trimmed out and he came charging down the wreck towards me. Time began to slow down as many years of effort and dreams all came down to a few seconds. He went into an aggressive mode, changed colors and threw up his dorsal fin. Awesome. Just frigging awesome.

I had made a couple of barbless shafts up, sharpened to a 2 inch long needle point. I pointed my 52 inch SS Hornet and slammed a free shaft into the sweet spot. OMG, I almost rolled him. He started shaking back and forth and I slammed shaft number two into his head. I swam over and grabbed him and was thinking Ok now WTF. We crashed into the wreck at 397' and I had my hands full. He was still moving around a little and I decide that I didn't want my 46 year old tied to this fish at this depth.

I put a PH on my kill spike and slammed into his head. I'm not sure now whether it was neccessary or not, but at the time it seemed like the prudent thing to do. I had been planning on lift bagging him up, but decided to pump air into his mouth and swim him up a few feet. 20 feet up and 10 seconds of pumped air later, he took off and I watched him blast towards the surface. Awesome.

I turned and watched SpearTen slam a spear into a 73 Lb Warsaws head and stone it. Great shot! We were a minute under our planned bottom time and decided to head on up. We met Jazzien(our first support diver) at 170 feet and I said "Did you get him?" and he answered that he had watched it blast by him and it should be on the surface.

Bucket came free diving down to a hundred feet (thats insane) and wrote out 400 LBS on my slate. We finished up our lenghtly deco as we watched large Wahoo swimming around us in the 84 degree water. Unreal.

It took all four of the guys and a block and tackle to get the fish on the boat. We took some pics and headed toward some shallower water. Awesome.

What an awesome dive. Thers just too few moments like this in ones life. I'd like to thank all the guys for their support and efforts to make this happen. A special thanks to Zeagle and Spearfishing Specialities for making the gear that made this possible.

A final and very special thanks to my brother-in-law SpearTen, for all his help and work towards making this happen. It takes a lot of guts to roll off a perfectly good boat in 425' with 200 Lbs of steel strapped to your back. I owe you bro.

wow, thats one hellova fish!

PHOTOSHOP IF I EVER SAW ONE, J/K. THATS A HECK OF A FISH

We went looking for sharks yesterday on our last dive at Stetson Bank in the Gulf but didn't find any.

OK, I know you are all tough guys, but didn't y'all see Open Water??? Y'all are scaring me!

open water was one of the dumbest movies about diving ever made, the two idiots didnt have the proper safty gear and the dive boat was not paying attention.....I have been diving for about 5 years and never been threatened by a shark (even went diving with great whites off of sandiego)...have seen some pretty big ones down there, most of the time they just want to get a look at you and leave you alone (unless we are feeding them)

quote:

Originally posted by waverider:
open water was one of the dumbest movies about diving ever made

Amen to that!