Staredown with the Taxman at LJ
 

I had been watching the wave forecast the last couple days and decided it doesn't get any better to take out the kiddo. We get there a little before one and didn't even have to wait for a good time to go. We just got in and headed out.

After a quick mac minute at the bouy, we saw one of the cattle boats drop anchor on the NW corner and lines started flying. We decided to just get a little north of them and drift in. I had just put my line out and decided that I wanted to bounce the bottom so I reached for my other rod when I see the shape form in the water. He approached us with his dorsal out of the water and angled towards the front. I reeled in my line and realized that I just brought a mac three feet from his nose. I saw him drop down and come up on the other side about twenty feet out and turn towards us. I alerted my buddy about 100 yards away and he starts paddling (he has the gopro). That was when Mr. Taxman stops about four feet from me and we have an intimate eye-to-eye moment. He turns and scans the yak again coming alongside. That is when I get an idea of his size as he is about two feet shy of my outfitter. He drops underneath again to check out the hull and comes up on the other side. One more turn to look us over, then he turns, slashes his tail giving my daughter a shower and is gone.

It only lasted about a minute, but my brain will be seared with the seconds for a while. After the initial shock, I realized how close I was to a rectal cleanse. I have no idea what he saw in us, but he looked "interested" in us for something. We finished out the day with nothing to show, but I am satisfied with meeting an apex predator in his inviron so close I could have touched him.

My daughter was freaked out (she's 9) but didn't want to go in just yet. It was the cold that broke her and sent us in around five to a repeat cruise onto the beach.

Wow what a day! I was nervous just reading this thing.....

Mommy! Mommmy! Guess what we saw today in the Ocean?


Shhhhhhhhhh baby, lets get some candy for you......How about we don't tell Mommy about our secret little friend Mr. Sharkeeee.

Pinky swear, Mommy NEVER finds out about this....:D:D:D

11 ft taxman? Dude I would have gone home :( You got some gut! :notworthy:

Its when they go down and you don't see them, thats the time to brace yourself!!! I'm thinking it was just curious....:eek: I'll be in a boat the next few days thankyou!!

did your buddy get any footage on the gopro? I'm impressed that you stayed out after that. I think I'd have a 30 foot rooster tail behind my yak on the way in...

I think i would of peddled in very quickly after that!

your daughter got one priceless experience today.

Wow!!!

11 feet must be 1500 lbs, plenty big enough to scare you :sifone:


Jim

That's some serious stuff, there. I wonder if those swimmers ever see anything between the shores and the cove?

amazing report, glad you and your daughter were able to witness a magnificent creature so close and came away unscathed with a awesome story!

kind of makes me nervous about going out at 4am tomorrow

Thanks for sharing...

Sounds like a nice big one. 4ft distance away, incredible encounter! Glad you and your daughter took it all in stride. I've heard of a few similar stories in LJ... not too uncommon after all. Plenty of harbor seals and sea lions in the area to whet their appetite!

Dave's right, its the ones you cant see you need to worry about. They will be pupping until july-ish, then most will head back out to sea.

10-12 footers aren't feeding or are about to start feeding on seals. Its when they get larger than 12 they're eating seals and become dangerous. Im guessing you didn't see any seals out there today? Usually not seeing seals is dead give away that the tax man is around.

nice report... anyone want to go fish the bay?

saw you heading out as I was coming in......RED tandem, right? Something about red:rolleyes: Glad you guys came out unscathed and with a cool story

Surviving a close up visit from a great white...
A memorable moment.

When they turn sideways and you see their girth - and that unmistakable white underbelly - thats the moment you feel most alive.

Sobering reality.

Did you get any pics ?

man i got the chills from reading this

I'm kinda laughing about being brave and staying out. I just figured he was done with us and it was back to business. My buddy didn't make it over in time for footage, but he saw the dorsal and tail when we had out stare-down. My daughter was scared at first, (heck, me too) but the experience was too much to just call it a day. Staying out allowed my daughter to see seals, (they were around) the porpises and the overall experience LJ has to offer. She is ready for another trip when we can make it happen and that is what I wanted out of the day.

Barrels- yeah that was us. I remembered the "red" thing later and went, "Hmmmm."

Kahouna, did you bother reporting this to Lifeguards, Coast Guard, or anybody?
Not to start a panic, it's just that we as kayak-fishermen, would prefer to know one has been spotted recently. For one thing, we'll leave our life preservers on all day, which we usually take off and sit on during daylight hours. If one GWS was to flip you some how, that extra buoyancy would be an asset.
If we were swimmers/divers, we'd want to know that information, too.
We couldn't imagine if we didn't report it to some authorities, and then found out a swimmer, diver, etc, was attacked because they were ignorant of the fact a GWS was spotted in the area recently. Not reporting it, would haunt us forever.
We know no one would ever post such information on the theory of reducing the number of kayaker on the water, eh?
We didn't see anything in the news, yet.

Good point A&J. Who would a person notify? I wondered about it bit figured he is ever present in his waters, we just borrow the area for enjoyment.

Shark
 

Some of my buddies were free diving out there, I am sure they would like to know.

This brings up a very interesting question. As Aaron&Julie mentioned, it would be very useful for those planning on being in or on the water to know that a big shark had been spotted in the area. On the other hand, as we saw with the 7 gill biting the diver last week, this kind of report can quickly become overblown and create a panic.

The news media loves sensational stories and what could be more sensational than a guy and his young daughter being drooled over by a large GWS. I think that if this incident had made it to the media we would have witnessed an epic over reaction based on fear and ignorance.

This is a tough one.

Bob

Notify here:
http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.co...shark_news.htm

Wow, awesome experience for you and your daughter. How cool that the little one didn't panic! Thanks for the report.

From all the kayak/GWS encounter stories I've read, it seems like it all goes without troubles as you see them first. Seems like if they are in "hunt exploration" mode, they don't announce their presence.

You are incredibly lucky, very few people get to see GWS at LJ, even the guys that spend a ton of time OTW. If it happened recently, it would probably be good idea to notify lifeguards, so they're aware. Local GWS sightings always generate a buzz - last time in February someone saw 5 ft great white, and it was all over the news.

that was a very suspenseful story. glad to hear that you and your daughter had a good time and experiences like this makes lasting memories.
who knows perhaps she may be inspired to pursue marine biology because of it????? :rolleyes:

Very quite on the Western Front
 

A group of us launched at 3am today with no GWS sightings and plenty of seals milling around all over. A couple of squitrs and a WSB for me but no GWS reported. The Shark could be up at Catilina by now or anywhere else. I don't think it is necessary to report the sighting to the media then it will be more difficult to get my son back out there with me.

Stone has committed to donate a keg for the Bill Poole Memorial Angling Tourney for our 7/31 11am-2pm BBQ. We are still working on Ballast Point as well so we can have a bit of variety of suds to help with the silent auction bidding.

Look forward to seeing you at the end of July, Kurtfish

i launched @ 3am today, and was in our little group on the way out this morning...I thought we were all still right next to one another, when i was rear ended full speed from what i thought @ the time was my buddy Andrew. I almost lost both my rods and some gear thrown completly out of my yak from the harsh impact. I flipped on my headlamp instantly, to see which buddy just rammed me?...but when i got a audible response from my friends, their voice was clearly over 50 yards away...

San Diego lifeguard # 619.221.8824, i keep it in my cell in case i need to call on the water

:reeling:

Also, DFG if you want to call them to report violators 858.467.4201

Thanks, Wade, for making my point. I'll tell you, that sounds scary enough, being bumped in the dark not knowing "what the hell".

I don't know how over-panic would be a problem. Better safe and knowledgeable, than ignorant and bait.

It's not like it's going to be a scene from "Jaws", that just because the media reports it, there's going to be 200 boats on the water, with guns and fishing rods trying to catch it/kill it. In fact, it wouldn't make any difference to kayakers fishing out there.

What if that GWS that swam under Kahouna's yak flipped him and his daughter into the water?

Can you imagine the fear of having such a predator in the water next to you, while you have to not only flip your kayak, but get your daughter (obviously first) back on board, then yourself. That would be about the biggest 2-4 minutes of terror I could imagine.

True, there's GWSs that show up occasionally at LJ, and odds are they won't be a problem to us-kayakers. Then, it only takes that one time, really. Plus, there's the free-divers, swimmers, etc to consider.

Who cares if it is over-hyped? It won't change things for our fishing conditions.

Good idea, Cajunman. Thanks for those numbers.
I'm loading both phone #'s on my cell phone after this post. Not just for GWS showings either.

damn.... so did you keep fishing or what? Any tooth rash on your stern??? Knowing you, you probably rigged up a 10/O hook and threw out a 30lb YT as bait and tried to CPR it. :D

Seriously, that's some crazy chit...

Wow! - might not go out in the early morning for a bit. A few years ago when I was paddling from the pier across the canyon before grey light, something large came up and grabbed my bait tube and pulled my kayak almost to a stop. What the would attack a bait tube??? Scared the @$#*(@^ out of me. I looked back but saw only my wake. Heads up!

Someone released the Kraken!

http://www.virtuescience.com/kraken.jpg

Ok, I guess I'll be the first to ask. Kahouna, How sure are you it was a GW?
I've seen 8-10ft 7Gill next to me while fishing. Did the shark have pointy head or more of of square head? Did it have long tail fin?

But, i would not be surprised if it was a GW you saw. Everyone knows Geat Whites are in La Jolla
All the time.

Can someone remind me what is the emergency channel on those handheld Cobra radios? I think it's 19, but I'm not sure. Thanks.
Not GWS related (I hope), I would just like to know.
Aaron

Great... now the spearos are going to go on a shark hunt and drag the poor fellow up on the CP beach so all the seals can take a sniff and the news can come. And the seal lady will be pissed!!

Too bad there's all these sharks while the vis is 50 ft and there's giant schools of 40lb seabass swimming everywhere... :cool:

Wow, thanks for the report!

And there I was the day before last year's Steve Moyer Memorial Tourney bleeding out my YT thinking, "Man, I'd never do this up North. Good thing I'm in SD!".

I am both a freediver and kayak fisherman and would prefer to not let the media in on sightings. Since I know the details of the absolutely ridiculous 7-gill fiasco, things DO get blown WAAAYYY out of proportion. I've been in the water in LJ 6 times in the last week and seen several sharks over 7 feet (and literally 100's of WSB :)). This morning I had 2 of the biggest 7-gills I have EVER seen swim right over the top of me while I was laying on the bottom between kelp stringers. Very very cool to see. They are thick because of the WSB.

GWS are ALWAYS right off the coast, so why make a big stink about it? Swimmers know they are always there, divers know they are always there, kayak fisherman know they are always there. I could see letting research types know for research sake, but please don't call KFMB. They can put any spin they want on it and so will the enviros.

These are just my opinions, not that they are worth anything :rolleyes:.

Evan

It was already done this past weekend...and yes the seal lady was pissed (and drunk as usual).

there's giant schools of 40lb seabass swimming everywhere... :cool:[/QUOTE]


more like 50#ers!!:)

We saw another shark in Lj today.

- An 8 ft mako hit a minty green 7X on the retrieve. It rolled on the jig about 10 ft off the transom of the boat. It stuck for a brief moment, than shook the jig loose.