Great White Sharks - Queensland

[macdwp01]

Hi everyone, ive heard of the odd white in qld waters but only in small numbers. Im just wondering if any one has ever had a encounter with one out on the water or if they know of anyone who has.

[Dug]

OH YES!!!! Many years ago now but standing on Woody point jetty yellow fin tuna around 30kg went mad and were jumping out of the water. behind them as a white pointer fin we could see about 2ft of dorsal fin and a tail swirl a Long way behind it. from what we could work out the shark must have been 20ft+ :o

We were standing on a solid concrete jetty and our legs went to jelly just thinking about it, scary stuff.

There used to be a lot of great whites around the Tangalooma whaling station.

A few of the old and smart ones still hang around there I reckon.

[imnotoriginal]

They say at the resort that they used to have to hire gunmen to keep the whites from gorging on the carcasses of the whales as they were brought in to be cut up. Not where i'd have been swimming at the time.
Joel

[Heath]

Yep :o :o :o

Back in 2000 had one approx 10m from the boat. A 5m tinny & the bugger was as big as if not bigger than the boat :o :o

This was on the 24 fathom line off Surfers.

I was in such a rush trying to get footage of this massive thing, I couldn't work out why I wasn't seeing anything................ lense cap on [smiley=wut.gif] [smiley=wut.gif] [smiley=wut.gif] [smiley=bomb.gif]

[nofrills]

in about 1998 i had a big berley trail going late arvo on curtain artifical at moreton.this monster great white came up real slow and when under the boat.it dwarfed my boat which is 17ft and the thing that really stood out was it was almost as wide as my boat :o.i was also by myself and not ashamed to say it scared the crap out of me.
i pulled the pick and came home.it was a friday arvo and the weekend weather forecast was perfect so i rang vmr bribie and told the guy, so if a diver got eaten on that weekend it was his fault not mine ;D

[Dug]

There is really nothing like being in a boat and watching a big shark swim past to make your knees go to jelly and your guts turn over.

We were going to do a Scuba dive from an 18 ft half cab, we anchored up and were getting our gear on when an 18 ft tiger shark cruised past. No one wanted to go for a swim that day!

We went home and hit the pub!

[macdwp01]

Yes, nothing like shark stories

[devocean]

According to some research I read in a spearfishing mag they are found all the way to the tip of Hervey Bay. They are mostly a cold water species and the water in nq is to warm for them. As a spearfishermen I hope this research is correct

[agnes_jack]

Mac
Talk to Craigie about his last visit to 1770.
I am fairly sure they had a passing visit from one of them fella's!

A few years ago a bloke called in to my shop with a truck load of fiberglass fish mounts. He reckoned that years ago he caught 3 whites off 1770 that were all around the 18ft mark :o :o :o

Same guy said he could do a mold of an 18ft pointer!
About 2 year ago the local spanner crabbers had one wrecking pots and stealing baits.

Regards, Tony
PS Sorry for the bad news Devo!!!!

[gunna]

So a related question. Guys always say there was a big shark around the boat and they got the pick up in record time. Why ?? Surely they are not generally dangerous. They don't attack the boats. So its ok to sit there & not freak out ?

I reckon that would look good on my epitaph "The Ausfish Guys Said It Was OK"

[mackmauler]

Gunna, they eat the fish on the way up, fok helping em get an easy meal.

[agnes_jack]

Gunna
One had a go at the outboards of one of the mackeral pro's round here not so long back!
Apparantly chased the fish to the boat and got really pissed when he missed it.
Personally they don't worry me that much, but I would have no hesitation doing a runner if they got toooo friendly :-/

Regards, Tony :o

[devocean]

Gunna know a mackeral pro up in the Hinchinbrook area and he has had plenty of outboard encounters with hammer heads and tigers. I have also had a hammerhead follow the boat for about 3 miles once.

[Fishin_Dan]

In Sydney many years ago, we had a mako grab the prop of a 21ft 1/2 cab. It then proceeded to swim forwards pushing us along in front of it...

[gunna]

I saw the footage of the great white chewing on the back of a boat in SA a couple weeks back. I assumed most of these incidents are the shark taking some interest in the berley bucket. Now I am starting to worry :o :o.

[skippa]

Not a White story, but a true Tiger story.

Was fishing with a mate in his 1750LE last year. We were in one of my favourite spots in the Rous when Harry connected with this huge Tiger. His first BIG fish on his New Rod and Reel and he wasn't gunna loose it. After chasing this thing around for nearly an hour we ended up over the banks in no more than 10 ft of water.

The Tiger was about 20mts away when he suddenly turned and headed straight for the boat. He swam underneath us and you could clearly see his tail out one side of the boat and his head plus a good 4 ft out the other side. This thing was a good 16-18 ft long and didn't mind nudging us as the fight drew on. (Thank God the line broke) I nearly poopied my boardies. ::)

A close encounter in shallow water.


Cheers,
Tony 8)

[bobby777888]

my grandfather was on hi boat at hervy bay back a wile ago and an 18 ft tiger shark was crusing around. it must have smelt his berly trail. as soon as it came we got the hell out of there

[CQ_Fisher]

I remember reading a story a little while back in QFM about some guys in a 5M centre console on their way home from the 12 mile off Gladstone, as they were approaching the fairways beacon on the way back into the main shipping chanel they caught site of a shark. As they got closer they realised it was a great white that was slightly larger than their boat and about as roaund as a tractor tyre. From memory the article said the shark didnt even pay any attention to the fishermen in the boat, it just kept slowly cruising along and eventually dived down out of site. What an encounter that would be, great if it didnt pay you any attention, terrifying if it attached the boat.

[macdwp01]

I've heard stories of whites attacking anchor chains.

[devocean]

As a spearo I believe that an 18 foot shark is too large and should be classed a pest and be killed. What do you guys think?

[macdwp01]

Remember the old Jaws line.

You go in the water

Sharks in the water

Our Shark

Farewell to the maids you fair spanish ladies

[bobby777888]

As a spearo I believe that an 18 foot shark is too large and should be classed a pest and be killed. What do you guys think?

normally a fish like this is just a normal part of the environment and should be treated as suck, however, with netting the way it is today a fish like can become something of a pest. perhaps if they had more natural food they would be safer.....

bobby

[bobby777888]

in that last post in my first line i ment to say.. 'treated as such,' not 'treated as suck.'

[Mick]

Devo, next time we go spearing, I'll give you a tin of mortein, so you can deal with those nasty pests.
One of two encounters I have had with large sharks is probably worth sharing. One spearfishing method I have adopted is trolling the spearo next to the boat. Usually 2 guys in the water, hanging onto a a piece of rope each from the front of the boat. I was on port side going over a deep section. I couldn't see the bottom, so i was just waiting til we come to the next bombie. I look to the side and there is a 15 -18 foot tiger happily swimming about 4 foot from me, swimming the same speed as the boat. It stayed with the boat for about 30 seconds. What do you do? Can't get back in the boat while it is moving? Can't let go of the rope? Just hold on and pray! We were looking at each other for what seemed an eternity. I even had time to check out scars, teeth, size, etc.

[jimbo59]

Dont worry about whitepointers its the tigers in moreton bay they breed around peel is in the deeper water i saw a few pics of some in a cafe at garden city the owner caught them, some were nearly 18 feet long!Any way didnt a surfer die about 8-10 years ago off cape moreton aparantly it played with him for 1/2 hour then dragged him down.

[agnes_jack]

Mick
Sounds like fun!!! :o :o :o
Trolling for tigers.....hmmmmm thats keen! ;D ;D ;D

Regards, Tony

[Fin_Addict]

I've had 2 encounters with Great Whites and both were off Mooloolaba 18mile out...First was in my Seafarer and the shark was a 16footer approx....No one would hold the other end of the tape measure ::).. It came up to boat.had a look and dissapeared into the depths...Got some great pics of it even though my legs were like jelly :o The next encounter was onboard a mates 28ft Bertram "White-Horse". My mate thought our lines had tangled but when we looked over the side,we saw a 14ft White swimming under the boat and rubbing against our lines...This fella was very curious and even put its head outta the water on the marlin board at the back of the boat....He stayed around all that arvo and was still there at 8pm...Geez they look even bigger in the spotlight beam...!!!! Ross

[devocean]

Mick when are we going to hit that spot up. ater was clear on the weekend especially the water in my boat

[porl]

Geesh, 1770 ? You guys haven't been reading the papers. The courier-Mail had a story about 2 weeks back and showed the travel map of two great whites that had been electronically tagged hunting seals in South Australia. Both, or at least one, swam all the way up to Rockhampton before it went back to southern waters. Yup, Rocky.

[Sportfish_5]

Must have been on fishing Xmas holidays ;D

[Bent]

Just thought I'd chuck in my two cents worth.

The excepted wisdom about sharks chewing on outboards or props is that they are sensitive to slight electric currents from fish and the current from the sacrificial anodes on your running gear mimics this enough to get them interested, add burley to the mix and you could see why they think its an easy meal.

As far as the Great Whites in the tropics, I've spoken too a number of old salts who swear black and blue that they get as far as Raine Island (fnq) too feed on the turtles, haven't seen this myself but a couple of different and reliable sources have told me the story and it's such a remote area you just don't know what is swimming around up there. [smiley=stunned.gif]

[Mick]

Nothing is too say they can't cross an equator. Great whites differ in appearance from South Africa to Australia and to North California, and can be identified as such, so they dont just swim to another continent. But, according to a doc I watched a while back on sperm whales (i think it was the spermies), the Spermies normaly live around the polar regions, but breed just off Indonesia. How do they travel to warm water you may ask? Depth. Very deep! It's still cold down there. As for the great whites in rocky, thats not to say they went further because the tracking devices are only able to be picked up when the shark is on or near the surface. So if the shark stays deep it is undetectible by the tracking device.

[stack]

Goddamnit!!
Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water!!

I was surfing down the mornington peninsular in 1987 had been out for about an hour when a bloody big White broke the surface about 50metres away playing with a seal.We were only in about 6ft of water and I reckon my feet were touching the bottom as I took off to shore.We stood there for another hour watching this monster cruising back and forth looking for something else to eat,never surfed that spot again!!!

[Bozo]

Here on the North West Cape Western Australia they visit in the winter months especially with the whales calfing further north, in a straight line with the east coast we would be in line with about St Lawrence. Back in 2003 one of the local divers was in a rubber dinghy and was attacked by about a 14 footer at a place called Pebble Beach, which is about 15 klms south of Exmouth.
The most numerous sharks here are Hammerheads,Tigers and the different whaler species Oceanic and Bronze.

Cheers
Bozo

[FishFrame]

The most magnificent animal in the sea!! 8)

Such a shame its ancestor C. Megalodon is not around for us to check out!

At over 15m in length, just over 20 tonne, and with a head the size of a car, it would have been one helluva cage dive :o!

[FishFrame]

This site is an interesting read - http://greatwhite.org/

Cheers

Mike