Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 17

Thread: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

  1. #1
    Ausfish Bronze Member Red October's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Yamba

    Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Yesterday we decided to go for an afternoon/evening fish for snapper just South of Yamba. At this time of year when the tides are right and the seas calm we like to floatline for snapper in the shallower water as we find we have great success on the larger models.

    After getting to the spot we anchored with the MG and got the berley in the water and were settling down for a relaxed afternoon, then BANG. The whole boat rocked and we thought we had been hit by a whale, but nothing around.

    A couple of minutes later a 4.5 -5m great white started circling the boat and would not leave. It took a particular interest in the MG and the berley pot. This thing was monstrous, its was nearly as long as my 6M plate boat. After a while it had another go at the MG so we decided to move on. However I could not pull the MG in as the shaft had completely shattered. Luckily we have a quick release mount and pulled it off and stowed.

    What turned out a quick fish is going to end up an expensive exercise as the shaft is shot and there are a lot of teeth marks on the lower motor housing - bugger. This all comes a day after a fatal attack down this way the day before. Wont see me swimming in the water againIMG_1348.jpg
    Attached Images Attached Images

  2. #2

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Wow ...... I know they have a thing about burley pots but hadn't heard of them going for a leccy .
    Good job on getting the photo's

    Aside from that - how was the fishing ...... did you get those Snaps ?
    Gotta love that shallow water snapper fishing ..... floating a bait down a cube trail - specially on a baitrunner ...... zzzzzzzzzzz



    Chris
    Give a man a fish & he will eat for a day !
    Teach him how to fish
    & he will sit in a boat - & drink beer all day!
    TEAM MOJIKO

  3. #3

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    More and more Sharks around now, since the green tree huggers decided that no one should catch or net them.

  4. #4
    Ausfish Addict disorderly's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    In the Jungle/Mission Beach Hinterland

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Haha..I love your dedication to photography....

    Happy snapping away while a great white munchs on your MG is not exactly what I'd be doing ..

    I grew up bluewater fishing with my dad in NSW from Port Stevens to Hat Head and didnt have any encounters like that...

    Are they , as Noel suggests, just more prolific now or just more used to coming up to boats..?

    Gee I'm glad we dont get them up here in FNQ..

  5. #5

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Definitely more prolific now, back in "the old days" Great Whites were around, but now there's heaps, add to that limited netting, Shark numbers have grown.

  6. #6
    Ausfish Addict disorderly's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    In the Jungle/Mission Beach Hinterland

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Quote Originally Posted by Noelm View Post
    Definitely more prolific now, back in "the old days" Great Whites were around, but now there's heaps, add to that limited netting, Shark numbers have grown.
    Makes sense Noel....up here fisho's always complain about the increase in shark number and the increasing loss of catchs...

    anecdotal evidence suggests a big increase .

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-...&sf201891875=1.

    I cant verify this increase though but some other theories are that as rec fisher numbers increase many of the known fishing grounds and areas become like a bistro for sharks as they gravitate towards the sound of boat motors in the hope of an easy meal..the bull sharks seem particularly voracious and seem to actually follow the boat if we only move a short distance...

    As more people get attacked its something that might have to be looked at...

  7. #7

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    About 40 years ago I did a spell on a commercial fishing boat in the Whitsundays and whenever we set the nets in the estuaries at night we found that every second fish was a shark of various sizes from small 1M to what the hell chewed that big hole in the net, I don't know if they are more prevalent now or not but up there there have always been lots of sharks. As for swimming in the water at Cid you wouldn't catch me swimming in any of those bays, I mentioned once before in another post a long time ago that I had spent part of my honeymoon on a boat up there and and we had anchored for the night amongst other boats in a bay on the southern end of the Island, I think it might have been Turtle bay, anyway I decided to drop some lines and see what I could catch as it was evening, there was a boat probably 60-100m away which had anchored up and the kids started jumping in, swimming and splashing around, so I yelled out to them that I had just caught my third shark so the parents yelled out to the kids to get out straight away. I even caught an 8ft Tiger at Whitehaven Bay on another night.

    I shouldn't have had to tell the parents that but they just didn't know any better! Any of the estuary's and bays in that part of the world, especially in the evenings and early mornings, are potentially going to have things with big teeth in them and some of them even have 4 legs and a long tail. I personally don't know if there are more or the same amount as there have always been, as I haven't been there for a long time but I would take the commercials fishermen's word for it. As for sharks following boats I know first hand that they do as one of the things that we did on the boat after hauling in the nets was to sort, throw out the by-catch, gut and clean the keepers and throw out the guts overboard, ie; the dinner bell has rung. So it stands to reason that they have been trained to follow motor sounds even made by rec boats.

    One of my pet peeves is watching croc watching tour operators dangle food out of the water to entice the crocs to jump out of the water and snatch it mid air, crocs are smart, and I think that it will only be a matter of time before they make the connection and learn to jump out of the water and pull someone from a dinghy.

  8. #8

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Maybe not more prolific, just better trained to chase an easy feed. There's always been plenty of them. The pro crabber with the cruisecraft in southern moreton bay has had them target his boat specifically for years. They aren't stupid.
    nil carborundum illegitimi

  9. #9

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    More Whites now for sure.

  10. #10

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Quote Originally Posted by Noelm View Post
    More Whites now for sure.
    With the increasing numbers of whales I'd agree. I was thinking about the northern species when I wrote that. Having said that I have caught a white on a mackeral line off Weipa once - surprised us all.
    nil carborundum illegitimi

  11. #11
    Ausfish Bronze Member Red October's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Yamba
    Thread Starter

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Quote Originally Posted by NAGG View Post
    Wow ...... I know they have a thing about burley pots but hadn't heard of them going for a leccy .
    Good job on getting the photo's

    Aside from that - how was the fishing ...... did you get those Snaps ?
    Gotta love that shallow water snapper fishing ..... floating a bait down a cube trail - specially on a baitrunner ...... zzzzzzzzzzz



    Chris
    Yes we ended up with 13 snapper to about 50cm. The shark was not interested at all in the fish, only the warm blooded people on board.

  12. #12
    Ausfish Bronze Member Red October's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Yamba
    Thread Starter

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Quote Originally Posted by NAGG View Post
    Wow ...... I know they have a thing about burley pots but hadn't heard of them going for a leccy . <br>
    Good job on getting the photo's <br>
    <br>
    Aside from that - how was the fishing ...... did you get those Snaps ? <br>
    Gotta love that shallow water snapper fishing ..... floating a bait down a cube trail - specially on a baitrunner ...... zzzzzzzzzzz<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <br>
    Chris
    <br>
    <br>Yes we ended up with 13 snapper to about 50cm. The shark was not interested at all in the fish, only the warm blooded people on board.

  13. #13

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Hello Red,
    scary stuff, I too have had a big shark (Tiger) come to the boat after the berley. It can be a life-changing experience.
    As for the electric motor, it makes sense.
    Sharks can sense electric currents, I assume that the motor was running at the time, so we have a big spinner-bait combined with electric currents thrashing away, is it any wonder it attracted the shark.
    At this time of year the GW's travel north, whether it is the cold water or the whale migration or both who knows.
    I am always anxious when I swim in the sea at this time of year (at the Gold Coast).
    As for those diving trips out of Byron Bay to the Julians no thanks.

    On the subject of there being more GW's these days I would like to see the science to back this up.
    I have read that in South Africa the cage diving has been cancelled at the usual spots due to lack of sharks.
    Globally shark fishing is at an all time high and in fact shark numbers are in massive decline.
    You can be sure that there are longliners working just outside Oz territorial limits.
    These days with fake news and alternative facts science and rigorous thinking has taken a beating but it still beats hearsay.

  14. #14

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Large sharks having a bit of a chew on propellers isn't a new phenomenon. One of my uncles had the unnerving experience of waking to a boat doing a bit of a shimmy one night off Tangalooma courtesy of one of the bays large Tiger shark visitors. Certainly not a big stretch to get to one attacking a large "spinner-bait" (lol) .

    There are IMO certainly more interactions between large sharks and people these days. Potentially many reasons for it. From a personal standpoint anecdotally at least, up until year before last, I couldn't honestly say I had a fish 100% no questions asked sharked. In the last couple of years though it has happened multiple times. Shark diving operations go through lull periods - much like other "fisheries" - Rod Foxes operation will attest to that. Whites especially being proper oceanic predators with a life cycle that is very much still not understood can and do disappear for extended periods for whatever reason from the documentaries I have seen. Personally I think we are creating "the perfect storm" in terms of large white shark interactions in Australia. With protection from human predation and their food sources - primarily seals and whales enjoying population growth, I can't see any reason that their population wouldn't be growing - much like any other animal on the planet. One documentary in particular looked at attacks by whites in that northern NSW area. One of the scientists down that way is correlating bite dimension data. He was of the opinion that a good percentage of the attacks in that area were from sharks that were transitioning from juvenile to adult - around 3 metres in length. It is apparently at around this size their diet is in a change over phase going from primarily a fish based diet to a mammalian based one.

    Shark numbers may be in decline in some parts of the world. Anecdotally at least, it would be hard to say Australia is one of those places. Not all species are going to get into the areas where they are targeted by foreign vessels and Australian shark fishing effort has been in decline since 2006/2007 at least https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites...eport-2018.pdf. Talk to any trawler operator around the country and the story will be similar to this - https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...tail&FORM=VIRE and pretty much any reef or offshore recreational (or professional) fisherman will also attest to having more interactions than in previous years.

  15. #15

    Re: Motorguide Encounter with Great White

    Shark numbers are on the rise in Australian waters for sure. No doubt in my mind.
    Democracy: Simply a system that allows the 51% to steal from the other 49%.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Join us