Not sure what I saw...

I went out looking for halibut along Dillon beach yesterday. My first time fishing there. The ocean was pretty flat, so I did the beach launch, got out there only to find I forgot the bait!!! doah!!! so after breaking down the rods and stowing them in the hull again I went back through the surf to get the bait out of the cooler. First time was textbook, second trip through I took a pretty good soaking from a wave breaking over the bow. I was out there with one other PB drifting and slow trolling for halibut when I saw the birds start to act up and they gathered in a spot of activity about 300-400 yards out further. At first I figured it was some salmon were on some bait, so I started paddling over to get a cast or two in, but then a huge splash erupted followed by a bunch of thrashing. The birds started going crazy and for the next ten minutes or so I kept seeing something huge thrashing around. It was very violent at times. Most of the time the ??? was dark almost black, but one time I clearly saw a lot of white. It was hard to tell from the poor vantage point of a kayak, but the water looked stained. I pointed it out to the guy in the PB and asked him if he had some binos. He didn't, then he says, it's probably a seal or a shark. My mind was thinking shark, big shark, REAL big shark. Time for little kayak to go... Like I say, I couldn't say for sure, and I sure wasn't cruising over to get a better look. After that, I wasn't comfortable so I headed in. The guy in the PB boated two halis while I was there. Woke up this morning with those images in my mind...

Sounds like a textbook description of surface predation by GWS... only other explanation is a sea monster...

The surfers don't call that area "The Shark Pit" for nothing.

The other thing I was thinking, it might have been a killer whale. I definetly saw black several times and pure white one time.

GWS me thinks. Orcas have a dorsal fin over 10 feet tall, you can see  it from a mile away, if they dont show it, they drown. They usually travel in groups, pods, but I think the bulls hang alone. Lots of white sharks there. Too bad you did.nt get a pic. I wanna touch one.

A cat only has 9 lives, sounds like if you were a cat you might only have 8 left. Glad you survived to talk about it, being a surfer from many years I have heard stories of big GWS in that area.

I spoke with a local here who stated he had seen a GWS under a big bait ball down here last year!

I'm leaning towards the Tax Man too. I just watched shark week on the discovery channel and it was very similar to some of the attacks they showed. One thing for sure, something was getting eaten by something big!! Think I'm going to stick to the PB for that area...

If it was a killer whale, it might be the perfect time to be kayaking in this part of the  Red Triangle.  I seem to recall a Peter Pyle seminar at Bodega Marine Lab, where GWS didn't like being displaced as the top dog.  There's some kind of competitive displacement.  I think one of the tagged GWS went on a vacation to Hawaii.   

"In addition, unique events such as predation on a white shark by killer whales at SEFI in 1997 and 2000, and the subsequent disappearance of white sharks from the island (Pyle et al. 1999) after both predation events, may affect both the short-term and long-term population dynamics of white sharks off California." http://www.prbo.org/cms/docs/marine/wsrep02.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/EARTH/9710/08/whale.vs.shark/

...might simply like salmon shark...

.....perhaps a big thresher shark slapping it's tail around trying to stun some tasty baitfish? Had this happen to us at Bean Hollow last year while rockfishing....the efer was HE-UGE 

The funny part was seeing everyone's jigs flying towards the Threshers location...hoping to get a nice sleigh ride from a tail hooked shark 

Give you one clue.  I bet it rhymes with Great White Shark.  There was a big one spotted just off the Tomales Bar a couple of weeks ago.  Good on you for going the other way.  That's when we say,"Time to call it a day."
Dave

ichthyophile there was a report a while back about the kws up north decimating the otter populations in a really short time because normal food supply getting low The kws have started flipping white belly up so they don't spook the otters

jonesz a couple of years back I was about 4 miles out from Pedro following a big predatory situation and up popped a big dorsal which caused the birds to explode off the water in a major way Somebody suggested salmon shark

I wouldn't know one shark's dorsal from another but kw dorsals are pretty distinctive especially the males

Either my last Stinson trip or the one before something really wide did the drive under and a minute or so later there was a big dorsal off to my left but I was so goofy on pills I'm taking it didn't register right away

Didn't tell the jeffe about it

I hate to be the one to offer an explanation that might not be as exciting but over the years on 3 separate occasions I've seen sea lions eating large fish that fit the description of what you saw. These events had me pretty excited until I got close enough to see what it was, then it was pretty intereting to watch, (from my 20 ft Beachcraft) Twice it was salmon and the third was a halibut, and that was off Dillon just outside the mouth of Tomales bay.  The sea lions can't swallow these fish because they're so big, so they just tear them to pieces by grabbing a mouthful and violently thrashing them around on the surface until they come apart.  I was amazed at how violent a thrashing it became, also the birds loved it because of all the pieces that went flying. As for the white you saw, that could have been the belly of a big halibut,  Of course you were there and I wasn't, if it was a large white patch, then I'd also go with the GWS. Something special to see for sure.