baby salmon shark @ waddel beach 2008/08/16 (also one @ montara)

This one is a little nutty, but I surfed county line with my surf bud Leo (yeah you can see aNo island from there...  ) but before we surfed he wanted to hit the biffy at waddell beach. cause he's like those salivating dogs, but more like when he sees cold waves something else happens, 

Anyway standing on the bluff, waiting for Leo (upwind!) I'm looking at a pile of guys on some chest high peelers with a little south wind bump on them and what do I see on the beach, in 3" of water, thrashing around wildly, snapping like a mad dog?

A baby shark. 3 feet long if an inch, and fat fat fat.    . This ain't no leapard shark or spiny dogfish.

Well, we all thought it was a baby GWS. Not to mention we were in sight of aNo Nuevo and we are all surfers.

I do think I got to pull a bsteves and identify it tho, more later.

one surfer is holding it by the tail trying to revive it.

The ranger sends down somebody from the cliff to say it is probably a salmon shark and whatever it is they should stop messing with it and let it die if that is what is going to happen.

Well, the shark has been bitten in the belly by one of it's siblings and the bite marks are pretty needly looking. no flesh missing, just a nice semicircular ring of punctures.

I get the surfer that is holding it by the tail and trying to revive it by pulling it back and forth to wash water over its gills to hold it up a bit and when he does I see a very pointed snout and a lot of quite large but narrow teeth, not triangular shaped teeth.
Then he swims the shark out into deeper water and lets it go.

So it probably was either a young Salmon Shark, or else a Mako shark, something in the GWS family for sure, but almost definitely not a GWS.

Another surf tells me he saw a very similar young shark beach on Montara beach and make it back out fine.

Anyway, I have been surfing pretty regularly for a long time and have never seen anything like that before.

J

Good to know what's out there. Just like an episode of Fear Factor. Locals Rule! I once seen the same scenario on Guam, but, Tigershark!

Not a GW as I believe they are 5-6' long at birth , too bad there is no picture . With the teeth as described I would think a Mako .

Way to spice up a surf mission!!! ...Ooooh man, with the island in the background .

Hey bloodbath I was born on Guam! Just a Navy brat though, off the island after 9 months...

Not a GW as I believe they are 5-6' long at birth , too bad there is no picture . With the teeth as described I would think a Mako .

Why not salmon?

John,
With the info you gave, I would bet salmon shark (You were the one there), just because of the cold water upwelling. Water near the coast is COLD. the closest i would expect to see a mako, would be out beyond 124.25, where they are getting the Albies (Sea Angle post on coastside.60 fish). The water is only 59º out there.

Not a GW as I believe they are 5-6' long at birth , too bad there is no picture . With the teeth as described I would think a Mako .

Why not salmon?

Just a thought , the salmon shark is in the same family as the GW from pictures it appears the salmon shark has triangular teeth as does the GW , just smaller . Thant is why I said it was too bad there was no picture , it's just anyones guess at this point !

The beaching of 3' salmon sharks in not an uncommon occurrence in NorCal beaches.  Although it is a bit late in the summer for it.

-Allen

Not a GW as I believe they are 5-6' long at birth , too bad there is no picture . With the teeth as described I would think a Mako .

Why not salmon?

Just a thought , the salmon shark is in the same family as the GW from pictures it appears the salmon shark has triangular teeth as does the GW , just smaller . Thant is why I said it was too bad there was no picture , it's just anyones guess at this point !

Dan,

not quite true that it's "anyones guess". I saw it clearly and remember it pretty well.  it was yesterday and I was watching it for 10 or 15 minutes pretty intently.

Kinda seems like you don't know what you are talking about, eh? or maybe you are just trying to be annoying? 

anyways, thanks to pole pole saying it is not that uncommon, I found this pic of one in bodega.

pretty much a dead on match for the one I saw. guessed to be 1.2 meters or a little over 3 feet for the metric challenged.



from this page. http://homepage.mac.com/mollet/Ld/Ld_strandings.html

J

John,
Did you use the Shield while surfing? JEEEZ that pic looks waaaaay to similar to the one in my recurring nightmare for comfort!

John,
Did you use the Shield while surfing? JEEEZ that pic looks waaaaay to similar to the one in my recurring nightmare for comfort!

yeah, the baby salmon sharks look a lot like a GWS don't they? you can see why it was causing a scene! and you can see how fat they are, I mean they are shaped like a big albacore pretty much, that's why I said 20-30 lbs.

sharky, sorry to be a source of continuing the nightmares,  .

I did not use the Shield at that spot. A lot of bull kelp in that one little spot I was surfing. And the big waves close out, so you are basically surfing waves no larger than head-high which means water 8-15 feet deep, no deeper. So the shark would have to love swimming through the kelp in 8' to 15' deep water to find us. Also, it would have to pass the great buffet known as the island itself to get in there. Short story, although that spot is within sight of the island, I worry a lot less there than I do at some more exposed reefs a little further to the south.

In a strange twist of fate, I might fly down to troncones in a few days. As you may or may not know, two surfer/shark fatalities there this year (one guy from SF) after 30 years of no attacks at all there. perhaps I will bring it for that trip.

John

John,
Its cool,you aint the source of the nightmares!! . Iget what you mean about the break being protected. some spots are just like "no ways". a barrier of bull kelp is always a good thing. Never seen them inside a kelp barrier, but on the outside, PLENTY!!!

Not a GW as I believe they are 5-6' long at birth , too bad there is no picture . With the teeth as described I would think a Mako .

Why not salmon?

Just a thought , the salmon shark is in the same family as the GW from pictures it appears the salmon shark has triangular teeth as does the GW , just smaller . Thant is why I said it was too bad there was no picture , it's just anyones guess at this point !

Dan,

not quite true that it's "anyones guess". I saw it clearly and remember it pretty well.  it was yesterday and I was watching it for 10 or 15 minutes pretty intently.

Kinda seems like you don't know what you are talking about, eh? or maybe you are just trying to be annoying? 

anyways, thanks to pole pole saying it is not that uncommon, I found this pic of one in bodega.

pretty much a dead on match for the one I saw. guessed to be 1.2 meters or a little over 3 feet for the metric challenged.



from this page. http://homepage.mac.com/mollet/Ld/Ld_strandings.html

J

John , Neither trying to be a PAIN or confused !
 As I said , no picture - I have no real idea what it was , only knew it was not a GW because of it's small  size . Seems to me and anyone else that reads your original post you were also not so sure what kind of shark it was either , as you stated a baby salmon shark , a Mako or some other  member of the GW family. Sounds like neither you nor I know what it was for sure so why are you jumpimg on my butt ? Hope you are just having a bad day and this is not how you regularly respond to someone who is not a regular here and posts . Maybe I missed something , but I did not write anything either negative or derogatory towards you or anyone else here and not quite sure where  your coming from ? Sorry for what ever upset you . 

Dan

Dan,

you come off as a Doubting Thomas. you doubt the identification as salmon shark, misread that at the end of the day somebody still thought it was a GWS (nobody did). next you wildly speculate it is a mako. then you complain about the lack of a picture, and post one yourself but with no identification (salmon or mako?)

and now you wonder why you are annoying me? 

look, it was an odd occurence in my ocean experience. I posted cause I know there are people here like bsteves and pole pole and others with significant knowledge or experience. pole pole posted the info I needed to learn more and I did that and posted the link so others could learn that salmon shark beaching in northern california is not all that uncommon.

I hope that is clear to you. If not, well no big deal. some people never learn and being annoying is not a crime after all.

J