Shark!! (I think)

Yeah it's a little more crowded than I like too, and Old Man's is probably one of the top 3 MOST crowded spots in the county! Most are pretty chill about it there though, even telling you to go ahead and drop in, sharing waves, etc.

 

I'm a believer that we must have some of the smartest sharks in world right here in SoCal. There are so many seals/sealions around for them to feed off of, yet they leave the massive amounts of surfers and swimmers alone. They absolutely know the difference and really don't want anything to do with us. They're amazing creatures.

 

Interesting post! I too, have been surfing some 45 years. Most of that time has been in Hawaii except for the 7 years I lived in Texas going to school. We did occasionally get some good surf there, but you had to be on it and dedicated. Sometimes it would last a few days, sometimes gone within an hour or so.

Gorda and Corpus.



I had my first shark encounter in Hawaii while in high school. We were out at Barbers Point (name at the time) and a couple of guys started franticly paddling in saying there was a shark...we thought they were just trying to get our peak so we stayed out. In a few minutes, a set appeared on the outside not yet breaking, and there it was, some 15 yards away ...about a 10 to 12 foot tiger swimming aggressively sideways in the swell. You could clearly see the mottled spots on its side. We all paddled to the beach...those guys looked pretty freaked out that were outside of us...dont know if they got bumped or what.
Then I moved to Texas for college, had many encounters with porpoise popping up next to me, scares the hell out of you because the water was so brown they were right on you before you knew it. I remember one popped up right next to me on the other side of the river in Gorda, we made eye contact for a bit...will never forget that. Then there was whay we believe was a Pilot whale that went right through our crew in the lineup....my friend's wife was the only one who initially saw it and in her Danish accent "Diggie, Diggie (Dickie her husband) there is a big enormous feesh!" by that time it had passed us all and was headed out to sea...we all saw the big dorsal come up out of the water...it had a big circular chunk missing out of the back of the fin. Sharky shark bite!
I only had one shark encounter in Texas, and one "unknown" encounter.. To be continued!

 

Woo Hoooo!! No Sharks today!

Well, that may not be totally true... I didn't SEE any today.

Is it weird that I went back to the same spot today? There was A LOT of Pelican/bait ball activity, way more than usual.