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Posted on 03/30/2005 8:37:22 AM PST by Quilla
Hundreds of blacktip and spinner sharks have reappeared off the south Florida coast, closing some beaches during the busy Spring Break season.
Beaches were closed at Deerfield Beach and Delray Beach after lifeguards spotted the sharks just offshore, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Wednesday.
Some of the sharks were sighted as close to shore as 20 feet, but there were no reports of attacks.
George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, said the sharks are not man-eaters but have been known to bite people whose splashing hands or feet are mistaken for food.
He said blacktips and spinners grow to be about 7 feet long and eat small fish.
Last year, 12 shark attacks were reported in Florida, which leads the world in shark attacks. In 2003 there were 30 attacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
yeah, well, the wallet's the problem. I've looked at some real estate online. lateral move from Buckhead to the keys would get me....two small bdroom, kitchen cinder block house, painted some funky pink and green colors. dig it.
Sharks are pretty small in number and many have been overfished already. Commercially, shark-fishing is of doubtful value. However, driving shark species to extinction would be a very likely outcome.
The sharks are protected by the US government. We just haven't had enough wholesale slaughter of the humans, I guess.
You should worry about other species, such as pigs and dogs, much more. Per capita, they kill many more humans than sharks do.
Until recently, I've taken my children to Mexico Beach every year for Spring Break. It was always so beautiful, shells were plentiful, and to tell you the truth, I was probably the rowdiest one there. We'd always stay at the Driftwood and in later years, in their cottages. It was pure heaven.
Now that they are teens, they just have to do Panama City for Spring Break. I let them go by themselves for the first time this year. They made it home Sunday, safe and sound.
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Last time I was there I remember the Tarpon stacked up 'shoulder to shoulder' just out in front of the Vaca cut bridge waiting for the tide to bring them mullet.
They acted the same as snook - if you can see them plain as day, they pretty much aren't hungry, or are looking for very specific - they will ignore anything you put in front of them.
I agree about the blacktips. Last summer I caught a 4 footer on 10lb test (with a thirty pound leader - I wasn't actually going after shark at the time - he just ran off with my pinfish.) He went around and around the boat and felt like a whale on the little rod/reel - man it was fun.
Thanks for the ping!
When we were kids, my brothers and I were swimmers - on a team. So we'd get to Panama City, and we'd swim out to the dolphins - a long way out. Thanks to Jaws, I don't go any further than I can see - even in fresh water lakes. It's just too freaky.
You'd be surprised in other parts of FL how many folks have forgotten about the practice of chumming. Most think it's only for sharks.
Years ago I was in a little jon boat just to spread chum (some frozen and weighted, some an oily homemade mix) off the beach before heading back to shore to shark fish from the beach throughout the night. A set of breaking waves caught us in a precarious situation and the oily chum in the 5 gallon bucket tipped over on me and I wound up jumping (more of a controlled fall) overboard since the little jon boat took on a lot of water and I didn't want to capsize it. I yelled back 'you bring the boat in' to my buddy and swam back to the shore like Mark Spitz - I didn't like the idea of being in the water covered in oily chum at sunset.
My wife stopped by with sandwiches about 10 minutes later, but wouldn't come within 5 feet me because of the smell. Even rolling in sand and rinsing, I couldn't get it all off.
We had a gang of about 8-10 kids that would swim out to the 3rd reef of Pompano Beach - my sister could not swim that far so we towed her by rope in her inner tube over the sharks and other sealife below us.
I've seen monster Hammerheads there and one caught and hung on the Intercoastal Bridge (yes, we swam there also....) looked to be a record catch.
A HD truck inner tube over a piling opposite Hillsboro Light with a parachute cord, chain, and bloody chicken would produce a spectacle few could imagine as that tube was stretched and that shark went airborne.
I've seen huge steel hooks on lines behind sports fishing boats straightened out flat by hammerheads off Lighthouse Point.
All that "no danger" stuff is from the media and Chamber of Commerce.
When you grown up around gators and sharks and coral and rattlesnakes you know no fear.
Idiot snowbirds will even feed the gators in their backyards now.
well now, gators are something I know about, having prowled around the chattahoochee backwaters alot. Scared up one momma gator and her youngun when i was in a canoe. Now that's scary! I paddled that canoe out of that slough faster than a speedboat.
Me too, 1972.
Landis Green and streaking. Good times.
It's a small world. I've seen two of my hall mates here in Atlanta. I've got many fond memories of Florida state (those I can remember).
Gee... I figured these were bull sharks!!! ;-P
Sharks feed at dusk and dawn. Maybe they were just hanging around waiting and the surfers knew that. I wouldn't, but kids think they are bullet (or shark) proof.
My uncle Del, founded the City of Layton on Long Key... some of my relatives still live there. I will hopefully head down in the next couple years and enjoy some water other than surfing in 50 degree Santa Cruz water.
I remember the day I moved into town in mid-August - 102 degrees and no breeze. I had come from a coastal town, so the no breeze thing in the summer was a shift! I miss the hills too, most of the rest of state is like a slate pool table.
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