I had to look up ”surf rods”
I was thinking bang stick
My husband just said we were at Orleans national seashore
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Wow not for me . You’ve been lucky to visit some pretty off the beaten path locations.
I got out this morning for a SUP paddle, the wind was a lot higher than the predictions and the water was really choppy so I didn’t really surf. I did see a young sea lion that had been 3/4 of the way eaten that had washed up on the beach. A large bunch of very buff, bronzed and bitchin’ ocean swimmers were gathering for their early morning group swim and were standing all around the corpse without noticing. (Yikes). Also we have an off shore algae bloom going on with toxic algae. Animals that eat the fish that have eaten the algae have central nervous system symptoms of neurotoxicity. Several pelicans were acting disoriented while hunting in the waves, and a few of them followed me as I was paddling, strange behavior I have never seen before.
Yikes! A lot of our metro beaches have been closed because the rain onslaught of this past week have resulted in overflow of sewage into the rivers and out into the beaches right next to cities.
The beach that I have been surfing has so far been spared. It faces the open ocean and doesn’t have any rivers flowing out into ocean water. But, it is getting crowded tho’…
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Free diving off the Atlantic coast of South FL I would sometimes see large dark shadows in the distance. I was collecting marine tropical fish for the local aquarium shops. I would have a large plastic bag of fish tied to my waist and two wood handled dip nets. I was never approached close enough by any of the shadows to get an ID. Smaller sharks would be spotted from time to time though, and Nurse Sharks of all sizes were common. I was swimming just off a jetty once when a large shark came around the end and swam right under me. That had me standing on the rocks very shortly afterward. I didn’t get a good enough look to ID it with certainty, but think it was a Bull Shark.
My sister while diving at the Christ of the Deep at John Pennekamp NP had the resident Great Hammerhead swim right under her. She thought it was about 12 feet long. The guy she was dating was also there with her. She looked around to warn him, but when she came to the surface, she saw him making a beeline back to the dive boat leaving her on her own. That relationship didn’t last long.
We often swam at beaches that have some of the highest shark attacks in FL. Most of those are by small sharks.
In Grad School at UF I became friends with Geroge Burgess when taking the Ichthyology course under Dr, Carter Gilbert. George was the lab assistant at the time. He is the individual who amassed the Shark Attack Files and was often seen being interviewed by the media after publicized shark attacks. He is retired now.
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In the database, are the types of sharks in these attacks tracked? You mentioned Bull Shark. Is this more involved then say GWS?
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Thanks to the American taxpayers, we appreciate it.
I feel that Bull sharks are among the worst because they are so indiscriminate. Ocean White Tips are
pretty aggressive also. I used to swim in the morning at Indian Rocks Beach in Clearwater Florida and the locals warned me that I shouldn’t due to the Bull sharks, especially at the hour they feed.
I was always under the impression that Hammerheads are fairly harmless but I could be wrong. You’ll notice their mouths are tiny almost like a ray.
I do believe the files ID the shark species when possible. There are so many different ones, and most are harmless. Bull sharks can get big I think the largest was near 1000 pounds. However, they tend to be 200 to 500 pounds when full grown with the females being a good bit larger than the males. Their attacks are often fatal.
Volusia County FL is called the shark bite capital of the world. Here is the link to the International Shark Attack Files.
International Shark Attack File – Florida Museum of Natural History (ufl.edu)
Here are a few sharks caught off of Edisto Beach while on our 2022 vacation.
Sharp Nose Shark
Black Tip Shark
Scalloped Hammerhead
Fine Toothed Shark
Bonnethead Shark
In general, that is right, but both the Great and Scalloped are considered dangerous as they have both been known to attack people. If I recall correctly, the one at John Pennekamp was well known at the time and almost a mascot of sorts. My sister didn’t know that and obviously neither did her boyfriend! It was a big shark. How does the saying go “discretion is the greater part of valor”.
In high school Indian Rocks Beach was a favorite of mine. I have fond memories of spending time there with my girlfriend.
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What’s in a name?
The tongue-in-cheek renaming of the GWS, well that’s just funny.
I know that the Goliath Grouper was once called Jew Fish. I guess there are no Philistines left to be offended. I do think the new name is a better description.
I am not sure if the Slippery Dick was also given a new official common name designation, but I have seen it listed as Sand-reef Wrasse.
I hear tell a rose would smell the same by any other name. I suspect the same will be true of the wrasse and the grouper. 
The largest fish in the ocean is a shark and it is a gentle giant.
(1) Trapped whale sharks rescued by divers off Indonesia - YouTube
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This qualifies as a “Yikes!!!” moment…
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Hope the GWS are just “hanging out” off Nahant because my rocky homebreak is just south of Nahant and I surf Long Beach on the Lynn/Nahant border quite a bit…
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Not surprising. Folks come to Cape Cod to see the GWS (and maybe swim, in the kettle ponds?)…
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Internet Journalism
Scientist: Cape Cod is one of areas of the world where there are fairly dense white shark populations.
Internet Headline : “The newest and potentially densest hotspot for great white sharks has been identified – and it turns out to be in northern Atlantic waters, off Cape Cod”
Also I don’t know about the Shark Activity App - my guess is there are sharks out there doing their thing whether we see them or not.
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GWS have probably been travelling up to the northeast coast all along, although maybe an increase in numbers because of warming waters in the Gulf of Maine. But, not sure if there is a baseline to measure that.
Anyway, the Shark Conservancy has been tagging GWS with GPS off Cape Cod for years now. It has also been deploying buoys to track the tagged GPS. The “sharktivity” app is pretty recent has allowed the general public to get notfication from the buoys.
More buoys are being deployed north of Cape Cod. These are the ones now showing the migration habits of GWS farther north.
Having surf deep inside of MassBay for decades now, I have never thought much about GWS. Not that I should panic about it, but I should be more cognizant that GWS are swimming around the breaks that I have been surfing blissfully at. I have been and will remain cautious about surfing where seals congregate.
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Click bait headline:
“This deadly threat is just off the coast of Cape Cod”
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What always gets my attention here, is when there is a partially eaten sea lion, laying on the beach in the early morning light when I am about to paddle out.
A few years ago there was a dead whale carcass floating off the coast near Seaside Reef. The fire department was deployed to make sure it was a whale; they did not want to be bothered with getting their boat off the trailer and launching through the surf and they asked me if I would go take a look in my surf kayak. Sure enough it was a whale, and the GWSs had been nibbling on the body, taking shovel sized bites, some of the bites were much bigger. We are getting more sharks at different times of the year because of warm water temps, but it would seem a large number have always be out there, just a few hundred yards from the swim beaches.
Argh! Forget “clickbait!” It’s being “bite bait” that I would be worried about, especially when seals are around.
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