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Old 05-08-2017, 06:12 PM   #16
norcalsurfer
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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Originally Posted by maxmoose View Post
I'm still somewhat new to the sport - any tips on avoiding great whites? I've always thought the only shark I'd have to worry about in kelp are the 7 gills. Is this true or just a weird newbie ignorance?

Yea stay out of the water and you will avoid them. THEY...ARE....EVERYWHERE.

I don't know why everyone gets so hyped up about them. They are there even when you don't see them. You have a much greater chance of getting hit by a car and dying crossing the street after you've suited up to jump in the water.
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Old 05-08-2017, 11:04 PM   #17
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

...You boys must be true Trump Republicans....he always switches from the subject at hand to something else not even remotely comparable....
...I stay in Long Beach because if I get ran down here, they will simply flee. In Orange county, they will back up over you to avoid a lawsuit, and if that doesn't do the trick, they will sue you for getting in their way.....
...As far as avoiding great whites, there isn't really much you can do except to avoid the areas they are now congregating at...Mainly, have a plan to enable survival....1) head for thick kelp, the shore or your boat, by swimming backward with your gun pointed at the shark...2)avoid swimming fast in a panic or it may trigger a reactionary hit...3)at the last second, put a shaft into their nose or down their throat....followed by 4) turning the gun sideways and jamming it into their jaw hinges to minimize teeth pressure....several swimmers have escaped after the shark clamped onto them, by gouging the eyes, pounding on the nose and ripping at the gills...
....Number 1) and 2) worked for me when a 15 1/2 foot'er was after me at Church Rock, Catalina Island....Number 3) worked for me at Santa Cruz island when a 9' plus Blue came on fast and headed straight up at me from below. I dove on the approaching shark to avoid being trapped at the surface and fired point blank between it's eyes, as it's mouth opened. The shaft was only half way out of the gun when it nailed him. Shoot between the eyes in a triangle, back the same distance as the width of the eyes...That is about where their walnut size brain is located.... I think the Blue is still listed on the Fish and Wildlife site as the largest Blue taken by a diver or fisherman in CA and held the U.S. Spearfishing record until they ended shark weighing.......
...The main thing is to react quickly...If you can avoid the first rush, you have a very good chance for surviving, with a good story to tell the grandkids.....

Today's head count: The Alamitos Bay Boat U.S. towing guys say the L.B. count is now up to 20 gw sharks, all about 6' or so.

Last edited by Bob Ballew; 05-08-2017 at 11:13 PM.
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Old 05-08-2017, 11:52 PM   #18
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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Originally Posted by Bob Ballew View Post
...You boys must be true Trump Republicans....he always switches from the subject at hand to something else not even remotely comparable....
...I stay in Long Beach because if I get ran down here, they will simply flee. In Orange county, they will back up over you to avoid a lawsuit, and if that doesn't do the trick, they will sue you for getting in their way.....
...As far as avoiding great whites, there isn't really much you can do except to avoid the areas they are now congregating at...Mainly, have a plan to enable survival....1) head for thick kelp, the shore or your boat, by swimming backward with your gun pointed at the shark...2)avoid swimming fast in a panic or it may trigger a reactionary hit...3)at the last second, put a shaft into their nose or down their throat....followed by 4) turning the gun sideways and jamming it into their jaw hinges to minimize teeth pressure....several swimmers have escaped after the shark clamped onto them, by gouging the eyes, pounding on the nose and ripping at the gills...
....Number 1) and 2) worked for me when a 15 1/2 foot'er was after me at Church Rock, Catalina Island....Number 3) worked for me at Santa Cruz island when a 9' plus Blue came on fast and headed straight up at me from below. I dove on the approaching shark to avoid being trapped at the surface and fired point blank between it's eyes, as it's mouth opened. The shaft was only half way out of the gun when it nailed him. Shoot between the eyes in a triangle, back the same distance as the width of the eyes...That is about where their walnut size brain is located.... I think the Blue is still listed on the Fish and Wildlife site as the largest Blue taken by a diver or fisherman in CA and held the U.S. Spearfishing record until they ended shark weighing.......
...The main thing is to react quickly...If you can avoid the first rush, you have a very good chance for surviving, with a good story to tell the grandkids.....

Today's head count: The Alamitos Bay Boat U.S. towing guys say the L.B. count is now up to 20 gw sharks, all about 6' or so.
any pictures of that 9 foot blue?
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Old 05-09-2017, 12:16 AM   #19
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

I will try to post one...I yam not exactly tech proficient...
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Old 05-17-2017, 03:46 PM   #20
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

The trouble with trying to compare shark attacks with traffic accidents, cow attacks, and anything else is people generally don't normalize the statistics to be comparable with one another.

If I started the brand new sport called "Suicide Ball", and I was the only person in the world who played it, and I died...you could sit there and object that "Only one person has ever died playing this sport. It's way less dangerous than driving on the 405."

So if you wanted to make a meaningful argument that spearfishing is safer than freeway driving, you'd need to calculate how many hours all combined Socal spearos spend in the water each year and tally that up as your denominator. Then, for traffic, you'd have to calculate how many drivers there are on the road each day and collectively how many hours they all spend driving.

Neither of those things are easy to measure.

And even if we can come with decent estimates for the above, it gets even more difficult if we try to differentiate between fatalities of people who only ever sit in 5mph gridlocked rush hour traffic vs people who drive 80mph drunk at 2am on the freeway (both of which are things drivers can control).

Similarly, we could differentiate between a diver controlling his choice to dive at "non-sharky" spots with historically minimal GWS activity vs diving in May 2017 in open water where recent attacks have occurred. I think this was the point Bob was making.
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Old 05-17-2017, 03:53 PM   #21
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

The number of brain dead, dumb ass, reckless, aggressive and just plain BAD drivers on the 405 freeway on a daily basis outnumber sharks in the ocean by a wide margin.... I'll risk the sharks
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Old 05-17-2017, 04:06 PM   #22
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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The trouble with trying to compare shark attacks with traffic accidents, cow attacks, and anything else is people generally don't normalize the statistics to be comparable with one another.

If I started the brand new sport called "Suicide Ball", and I was the only person in the world who played it, and I died...you could sit there and object that "Only one person has ever died playing this sport. It's way less dangerous than driving on the 405."

So if you wanted to make a meaningful argument that spearfishing is safer than freeway driving, you'd need to calculate how many hours all combined Socal spearos spend in the water each year and tally that up as your denominator. Then, for traffic, you'd have to calculate how many drivers there are on the road each day and collectively how many hours they all spend driving.

Neither of those things are easy to measure.

And even if we can come with decent estimates for the above, it gets even more difficult if we try to differentiate between fatalities of people who only ever sit in 5mph gridlocked rush hour traffic vs people who drive 80mph drunk at 2am on the freeway (both of which are things drivers can control).

Similarly, we could differentiate between a diver controlling his choice to dive at "non-sharky" spots with historically minimal GWS activity vs diving in May 2017 in open water where recent attacks have occurred. I think this was the point Bob was making.


HOLY SHIT someone who understands how Statistics work!


Everyone who compared shark attacks to traffic accidents or beestings has outed themselves as an ignorant fool, lmao. Sad thing is some of you are older and should know better by now.
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Old 05-17-2017, 05:14 PM   #23
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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HOLY SHIT someone who understands how Statistics work!


Everyone who compared shark attacks to traffic accidents or beestings has outed themselves as an ignorant fool, lmao. Sad thing is some of you are older and should know better by now.
OK ..... then stay out of the water. You should no longer go into the So Cal ocean waters with the millions and millions of people who go out every year! And for the record how many deaths caused by great white sharks in our waters over the past, say 20 years? Lets see the stats and how they bear out... I'm guessing that, I will be on the side of RIGHT
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Old 05-17-2017, 06:14 PM   #24
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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OK ..... then stay out of the water. You should no longer go into the So Cal ocean waters with the millions and millions of people who go out every year! And for the record how many deaths caused by great white sharks in our waters over the past, say 20 years? Lets see the stats and how they bear out... I'm guessing that, I will be on the side of RIGHT
So Tommy,

That spot where you were "chased out of the water" by a GWS a couple years back at Capa. Have you dove there since?

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Old 05-17-2017, 11:24 PM   #25
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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So Tommy,

That spot where you were "chased out of the water" by a GWS a couple years back at Capa. Have you dove there since?

Errin,
The place where Thomas saw the GWS is the West end, I always dive that spot and so do most guys who want to shoot yellowtail. We did however motor on down to Cat Rock after the shark sighting and finished the day there.
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Old 05-17-2017, 11:47 PM   #26
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

According to these "statistics" ..... There have only been a confirmed 13 deaths caused by GWS since 1952 in all of California.... that's 60 plus years. I used the traffic deaths only to highlight the lack of fear that we all feel when we drive to work. In relation to the few number of GWS deaths, we should be more terrified of driving..... Hope everyone stays safe (including me) .....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._in_California
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Old 05-18-2017, 01:51 AM   #27
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

MangoTangos' bashing with the ignorant fool remark reflects on his limited communication skills and lack of respect for other outlooks.....Everyone sees a subject in a different perspective than someone else....that does not a fool maketh......otherwise, I would be in deep poopeth....
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Old 05-18-2017, 10:40 AM   #28
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

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Originally Posted by tommy7 View Post
OK ..... then stay out of the water. You should no longer go into the So Cal ocean waters with the millions and millions of people who go out every year! And for the record how many deaths caused by great white sharks in our waters over the past, say 20 years? Lets see the stats and how they bear out... I'm guessing that, I will be on the side of RIGHT
People who go in the water make up a tiny percentage of the population. Almost everyone is exposed to traffic on a daily basis. Similarly if you look at the 96 attacks in CA since 2000, you could say surfers are much more at risk since almost all attacks were on surfers, however that would ignore the fact that surfers outnumber spearos 100:1
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Old 05-18-2017, 12:25 PM   #29
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

Curious where you're getting a number of 96 shark attacks in CA since 2000. That's not a number I see supported anywhere else. This fairly sober article from the LA Times puts the total since 1950 at 86, total. Which seems reasonable, at slightly more than 1 per year.

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People who go in the water make up a tiny percentage of the population. Almost everyone is exposed to traffic on a daily basis. Similarly if you look at the 96 attacks in CA since 2000, you could say surfers are much more at risk since almost all attacks were on surfers, however that would ignore the fact that surfers outnumber spearos 100:1
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Old 05-18-2017, 03:21 PM   #30
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Re: Sharks Behaving Badly

The biggest and most aggressive sharks live in your mind. Common sense and good luck will help avoid most attacks, but part of this sports uniqueness is the fact we are in a wild, savage environment.
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