SC- 9/4/2013- Most intense fishing moment of my life->Sharks are hungry

 
 So, I had planned on getting an early start, though I did not wake up in time.  Set alarm for 0400, and didn’t wake up until 0500. Blast, off to a bad start.   Get my battery, radio, camera, lunch and head out.   I get down hwy9 about ¼ mile when I realized I forgot my bait.  Looks like one of those days, right?

  I finally get to the west side harbor about 0545.  Drop off my stuff on the ramp, then head to the restrooms to drop off some extra weight I was hauling around.  Cannot be on the ocean while prairie dog’n it!  0620… late start, but heading to kayak to push off.  Lift up my yak to slide it off the ramp, and go to place my paddle on the lip so it don’t swim away on me when I realized…… crap…. Forgot the paddles.  How does that happen?  Panic for a bit, did all this and don’t have a paddle, what’s a man to do?  Go back to Boulder Creek to pick up my gear, or call my prego wife to bring it to me.  Since it was before sun rise, I figured it would be safer for me NOT to call her.  So I hiked up and down the harbor looking for someone with a spare paddle.  Asked a couple of guys, nothing…. Starting to panic. Ugh.   Another 20 minutes goes by before I find a loaner  WOOP!

  Late start, I know, on the water at 0700 pushing to get to my spot so that I have as much time on the ocean as possible, since I was delaying work.  At my spot around 0730. Drop down some frozen squid and frozen smelt… nothing.   Dropped the sabiki in and scored a couple of live jack smelt.  Dropped those guys down………….. nothing.  Caught some more bait and dropped them in the cooler.  Reeled up one of my lines, the lighter of the two rigs.  My Shakespeare is nice and light with braid.  I decided to go at it DC style and put on my 9” white big hammer swim bait with 4oz red jig head (Compliments of Bones when we were in Albion).  I started casting the swim bait about 40 feet away from me, let it hit the bottom, then slowing reel in, basically dragging it across the bottom… trying to barely touch.  Nothing.  Did about 12 casts, then let it sit at the bottom below the yak as I checked my bait on other rod.

  Went back to the Shakespeare with swim bait bouncing on the bottom.  I reeled it in real slow like, watching it dance on my fish finder.  I was at about 45FOW, and my swim bait was at about 20-25 FOW….. and that’s when it happened.

My line got hit… and hit HARD!   I let it play for a second, then set the hook, WHAM! My rod goes nuts.    Now, my rod had some very big shakes on it, and from what I was taught, though never experienced, was that Halibut swim up and down when moving so your rod will go up and down when fighting it…. And that is exactly what it did for the first few seconds.  I screamed out “YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  I GOT MY HALIBUT… WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” as loud as I could.  I was stoked.  This fish was enormous… and I was thinking how I finally get to gloat with a giant hali…. Then the line just ran… not up and down pulls… just ran.  All of this was in the span of about 10 seconds.  It pops in my head… get out the gopro for your first hali… so I am holding the pole in my left hand with thumb on the line, and fumbling for my gopro.  Grab it, lift it to my head, just in time to see this leviathan jump out of the water….. was it a marlin, was it a dolphin… nope……. It is a 12-15 foot shark.  My heart stopped and I froze up for a second trying to gauge what the shit I am going to do with this thing.  It was bigger than my kayak!

  The shark completely jumped out of the water…. The sound that it made coming out of the water is probably what it sounds like when a submarine fires a nuclear missile and it rockets out of the water.  It was so loud that I felt it.  It seemed to freeze in mid air, getting its entire body out of the water before it does a belly flop that explodes the water around it.   This man eater was about 30 feet away from me when it jumped out of the water.  I wanted to fight it, though I did not want it jumping out of the water at me!

I catch my bearings when it goes into the water, look around, no one in sight. F@&$!  I grab my gaff without looking and hold it up in my view… I couldn’t stop looking ahead in case it charged me.  As the gaff comes into view I look at it, look back where the shark was and gauge its size to be about 12-15 feet long… and my gaff being about 2 feet long.  Dropped the gaff, that aint gonna work.  The only thing that would do is REALLY PISS IT OFF.   So I grabbed my dive knife… at least I would get a good hit on it in the face if it came up to me.

 The line was running away from me during this… then went slack. Oh shit… its coming right for me.   I contemplated paddling away fast, but disregarded that thought as to not let the damn thing know I was right here trying to escape.  It could probably smell the fear (piss) through my wetsuit.  I reeled it in real quick until there was tension, then gave it a good yank… that made it angry and it bolted on me…luckily for me, it went AWAY from me.  I looked around again and noticed a boat coming out of the harbor, so I hail him on the radio for assistance… and possible rescue.  While waiting what seemed an hour for the boat to get to me, I just released my bail, but thumbed the line, so it stayed tight and I knew where it was the entire time… didn’t make me feel too much better, but it helped. 

  Once the gentleman in the boat got near me, I started to reel in a bit more, since I was down to about 30yards of 180.  As I tried to hold on….. the line snapped.  Thanked the guy and asked him to stick around for a little bit, just so I can calm down.  Got real quiet out there…. Nothing going on.  It was just an eerie silence.  I collected myself…. Dropped the sabiki in the water, got some more live bait and went back to my halibut hunt while watching the waters around me.  Every bit of my being scream “GET OFF THE WATER YOU CRAZY MF”, but I just couldn’t.  I am destined to catch a halibut, so I have to stick with it… pfft so what if I almost died. I need me some halibut! 

  I fished for the next 2 hours.  Nothing was biting.  It was calm.  The only thing standing out was the sea lions were running amuck…. Wonder what was chasing them.  Twice, they made a direct path towards me.  One of them made me think they were going to try and dock on my yak.  I was slapping the water, and they just kept on coming right at me.  Back paddled a bit, and that seemed to scared them, since they went away.

  Back to silence.  Fishing my last hour was a tiring job.  My eyes where surveying the water every second. Just waiting… hand on knife… waiting.

1115 came around and I had to go.  Pushed my limits to far today, cannot be lost on time since it is borrowed from work.  Forced myself to get off the water, couple nice smelts for frozen bait later. 



No halibut, to my dismay, though there is always another day.


As for the shark, I will describe, because I see it every second I close my eyes know, but I still cannot place it.  Kicking myself for not having the GoPro already on. Dummy…. Ugh that would have been great

Length: 12-15 feet long
Thickness: Twice as thick as my kayak.  Real fatty
Color: Top part was a dark blue Gray, and the bottom was super bright white
Distinctive Marks: 
•   There were no patterns on the shark that I could see… though I was looking at its mouth open as it launched through the sky
•   It was NOT a thresher.  I know what they look like, and this thing did not have a tail anywhere near its size.
•   It had a sharp nose, yet rounded head to mouth area
•   Did I mention, THIS THING WAS FAT!  I think it was close to twice the thickness of my kayak, and just as long if not longer
•   Small back dorsal fin
•   It was smiling… because it thought I was on the menu… just guessing


I have a couple of thoughts on what it could be:
Mackerel Shark- The colors are consistent… thought there are tons of different Mackerel sharks.. the below are known as such
Great white shark- But the top color seemed darker than what I have seen on tv and internet.  It was a blue gray top color
Porbeagle Shark- This body type.. fatty and long… but the color don’t fit.  It was a darker color
Mako shark- Color is close, but the Mako shark I have seen is skinny compared to this beast
Salmon Shark- Looks dead on with the color, but the head and mouth are not right.  Salmon sharks have a thin head to mouth area, and a really pointed nose.  This thing had a pointed nose, but more like the point on the top of a house.  Shallow point on a fat head.


Apologies for not images, really bummed on it myself.  Thanks for reading though.

Bear
The man, the myth, the -almost-eaten-by-a-damn-shark- Legend

Great reading, I hope you returned the paddle.

Moral of the story get direct TV and don't poop on your wetsuit.

paddle returned and poop removed as soon as I hit land

Awesome story!!!!
I was on the hunt yesterday S.C. To capitola and got Skunked.
I think everything out there is full, there is so much bait.
Except sharks!
Keep at it yours is coming.

Blue shark?

Salmon sharks also have freckles on the ventral side.  We don't really see Mako's in MB...

Mackerel sharks are a family of sharks that include mako, salmon, great white, etc.

Porbeagle is an atlantic shark, in the same genus as salmon shark with more similarities than not, just a slightly different species.

I'm going to go with blue shark.  Large ones are known to come into the bay.  And, you did say it had a blue-ish tint.  Plus blue sharks have the shorter dorsal fins.

-Allen

BTW, I merged this topic with the other one you posted and deleted the duplicated main post.   

-Allen

Glad you are still alive bro! Wild story there.

For the sake of a good story, and based on the fatty description and the nose description, I'll chip in on The Landlord.

I was fishing at lighthouse point today. While I didn't see or hear any of this, something was definitely going on out there.

I got a handful of rockfish and one small ling in about 45 minutes, then about 8:30 or so, the fishing completely shut down. The sea lions were going berserk and the rockfish seemed much more scattered (according to the fishfinder). Then there were those LARGE things that I saw on my sonar, which I kept telling myself were just sea lions. It was an eerie feeling, so I headed in earlier than usual.

When I got back to shore, Bear told me his story. Totally plausible and really, really amazing. I'm glad it all turned out OK.

Btw, the water was thick with jacksmelt.

Wow! I'm glad you're safe bro.

It was that big hammer you gave me Bones... it must have had Shark attractant on it.

Found an image online that looks pretty dead on to what i seen, there is not title to the thing though so I am not sure what kind of shark it is.  Also, it was COMPLETELY out of the water and looking over at me with its tooth grin.

It was that big hammer you gave me Bones... it must have had Shark attractant on it.

If that's from the Albion weekend that shark was attracted to the resin.
I'll give you a few more next time we hook up.