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Unfortunate Whale, Fortunate Shark
Posted on February 8th, 2005 in Old-General by Fred McKinnon
Hey Ya’ll -
OK – this is kinda gross and weird, but was too freaky not to share. Sharks are no uncommon thing off our coast – it’s one of the largest shark breeding grounds in the world – but not for GREAT WHITES!
Well, a friend of ours from Marine Fisheries, Coastal Resources Division sent us this photo, below:
This unfortunate right whale was hit by a ship and was found drifting off the coast of Cumberland Island – just south of us … and taking advantage of the deceased, a great white shark.
WHOA
Now my brother may understand why I don’t like being the “deep guy” in the middle of the night when we seine for shrimp.
Oh well – I hear the themesong of “Jaws” now …
C-ya!
Fred
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4 Responses to “Unfortunate Whale, Fortunate Shark”
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Oh my! That IS freaky!
Now you know why I don’t like to go out far where waves are breaking to ride rafts anymore! Your Mom
Now you know why I don’t go far out in the ocean where the bigger waves break to ride rafts anymore! Mom
It has become somewhat common for one or two great white sighting to occur during the winter months anywhere from Savannah to Jacksonville. Probably the cool water temps and large supply of food.
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Different Story: Last summer a friend and I were chumming for kingfish at Grey’s Reef. The water was extremely calm that day. We had a chum slick going for about two hours and we saw a large fin about 100 yards behind the boat that was headed our way. A minute or so later, we had to remove our chum bags because we had a tiger shark that I would guess to be around 12 feet long mouthing at our boat. At one point, the shark rolled on his side and mouthed one of my shinny stainless steel props. I ran to the front to get a camera. My friend had climbed to the highest spot in the boat. About the time I went to take his picture, he spotted a live pogy that we had accidently dropped in the water that morning. The pogy darted between my twin 225 johnsons and so did the shark. His head was wider that the space between my motors. He wedged and with a violent thrust unwedged in about a second. The motion from it made my 25 foot hydrasport rock sideways enough for me to realize just how powerful this creature was. He swam off and I was glad.
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About 5 minutes later, some good friends trolled over next to us to say hello. While they were coming by, the hooked a smoker of a kingfish right next to our boat. We watched them chase the fish and fight it off of our port side. About 20 minutes into the fight, the countenance on their faces went from excitement to disbelief. The same shark had came up and bit there kingfish in half. The bad thing is that we were fishing in the Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament. You can not weigh in a fish that has been mutilated. The part of the fish that they had remaining weighed 33lbs. It would have been well over 40lbs and probably placed very high in the tournament.
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Good to hear from you!
Have a wonderful day!
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Scott Kick