Spearing Sharks

Yep, one of the most controversial subjects that we have to deal with as spearfisherman. I got an email today from a guy who had speared a Mako (great eating) and was looking for an outlet to tell his story. It got me thinking…
As spearo’s we are not out looking to spear sharks despite what the rest of the world believes. The Australian Spearfishing community has been trying to shake the brand of being shark killers for the last few decades and it has been the same for all of us in every country. No matter how many good fish we take home and how many hundreds of uneventful shark encounters we have it only takes one picture of a dead shark and a diver to spark a world of shit.
Not fair.
You weren’t there, you don’t know what happened, you don’t know what they were feeling at the time, they came back alive that is what matters.
I look it the same way as if your wife or mother were driving down down a windy mountain road with a 1000ft drop on one side. Its already dangerous and takes all your concentration to stay alive and drive(dive) safely. Suddenly an animal is in the middle of the road. If you swerve, you die.
The tree huggers are hating me right now but I already get enough emails and youtube notes from them…
It is a fine line when a big shark comes in aggressively, just like the bunny in the road you don’t know what he is going to do in the next few seconds but you know the alternative to killing him means serious injury or death.
The more you dive the more familiar and comfortable you will become with sharks and in thousands of shark sightings and “encounters” there has only been one time I’ve felt I had to make that choice….

With one Wahoo and a nice Jobfish in the boat already our day on the Reef was shaping up nicely until just after lunch time. I was working the Flasher while T chummed with a slab of Snapper as we drifted from the deep blue up onto the shallower part of the reef. I had the Flasher down at about 50 feet and as I came over the Reef I spotted a good sized shark moving along the bottom. I was about 30 yards away from T on the surface and as I watched the shark he caught sight of the flasher and immediately turned and came straight up to it. When he was about 30 feet from the flasher I stopped trying to pull it up out of the way and dove down to intercept him and hopefully shoo him away. He took one look at the Flasher and then quickly turned and continued up towards me. Up until now I couldn’t tell what type of shark it was or its actual size but as we closed the distance to each other I could see that is was a Grey Reef Shark bigger than any I have seen before. With my gun extended in front of me he swam right into the end of it as I poked him in the top of the nose at their most sensitive spot. As I expected he quickly changed his course and swam away from me and to my right as I floated slowly back to the surface. So far so good until he hit the chum line and started swimming up it quickly reaching the surface and moving towards T. To this point he hadn’t seen the shark and when he finally did they were only 10 feet apart and that’s when things started to go to shit. Surprised at seeing the big shark for the first time so close T did the first thing that most people would do and dropped the remaining 10 lb piece of fish he had in his hands and kicked away furiously. Seeing this happen I knew exactly what was about to unfold and made my way over to him on the surface. I got to him at the exact time the shark found the big piece, grabbed it, shook it and then swallowed it and charged us. By this time I had my gun in both hands about mid way up the stock so that I could swivel it as quickly as possible. The shark was so excited now and just started charging around us so quickly that we could barely turn fast enough to get the guns in between us and his mouth. He would come straight in at us and we’d stick the shafts into him and he would just turn in his own body length away and then turn right back and try to get us again. Usually when you smack a shark once he leaves you alone and looks elsewhere but this one was not giving up. He had his fins down and was swimming in and around us so quickly in those jerky motions that it was only a matter of seconds before he was going to go all out and get one of us. After banging him more than 5 times he was swimming past me about 6 feet away and in a millisecond turned in towards me and I instinctively pulled the trigger at point blank range hitting him in his head just behind his eye on the right side. The shot stopped him dead in the water and he just started sinking down away from us with the shaft and a trail of blood coming from his head and gills. From the time I had seen him on the bottom to when I fired was less than 2 minutes and I never would have guessed that it would have ended the way it did. For the first time I was able to put my head above the water and yell for the guy in the boat to get the hell over here and get us out of the water. The shark lay 20 feet below us and looked like he was dead so I just handed F the shooting line and climbed in the boat to help him pull it in. T is raving that he thought the big bastard was going to take his other leg off and was pretty bent about the whole thing. I was so pissed at both of them and even more pissed at myself for having to shoot the shark. I have always preached that there is no reason to shoot a shark and until this day believed that. We pulled the shark almost to the side of the boat and just when he was in range all hell broke loose and he came to life and blazed off taking out my shooting line and then the float line until I was able to take a wrap on a cleat and he started dragging the boat backwards. It took us another 20 minutes to fight him back alongside and secure him there with a tail rope. Back at the ship he measured 9 feet from tip to tip and was around 300 lbs. I play the whole scenario over and over in my head and no matter which way I look at it, it all just turned to shit.
I was pissed at everyone including myself for the way things turned out and wish that it could have ended differently. The turning point for the situation was when T dropped the big piece of chum. While diving in Australia we would have anywhere from 3 to 10 sharks around us at any given time of all types and sizes. We found out the first day that as long as you don’t drop any pieces that the sharks can’t eat in one bite they will stay calm and just swim slowly through the chum and pick off the small bits. As soon as you drop a skeleton or head though they get really excited and if there is more than one it usually ends in a frenzy. When there is no more fish they race around for about 15 seconds afterwards snapping at anything within their reach. So now we have a very hungry and excited shark that knows that there is something here to eat and believes he just has to go and get it. Add to this the fact that Reef sharks are notoriously territorial and this one had no doubt never seen another diver in his life. His Reef, his food, his house. Giving him that big chunk and then splashing around frantically does nothing but excite the shark more. The easiest way to avoid the whole thing would have been to just get in the boat. Of course this would mean that the guy in the boat would have to be paying attention. We have hand signals that mean pick us up, and the other is pick me up right now no matter what the hell you are doing. This means that you drop everything and put the boat on a plane and get there. I only had a chance to get my head above water for a few seconds and was unable to see the boat in the big swell and waves. F never saw me waving and could have saved us all from the situation that unfolded had he been watching us from the boat.
The low point of the entire day was when I got back to the ship and had to listen to all the guys all excited that I had “caught” a shark. I reiterated that I hadn’t caught him, I had killed him and that it wasn’t a choice I wanted to make. Reading this you may be surprised at the way this affects me and I want you to understand that I have the deepest respect for sharks and what they do for our oceans. In the same token however, they are a spearfishermans main enemy and because of that you need to understand them as much as possible in order to keep yourself safe and keep the sport fun. Because of the way things panned out, I am sure that I made the right decision and there was no other way around shooting him to defend myself. A 9 foot shark that is out to get you eventually will and there is no question that he would have left some serious marks had he gotten a hold of one of us. Of the thousands of hours I have spent in the water and the hundreds of sharks I have seen, this is the only time I have ever been able to say the shark needed to be shot.
Incidentally, not 10 minutes after getting back in the water, I shot a big barracuda to try and bring some Dogtooth tuna in. As I was pulling him up to me, another shark came up from the bottom that was much bigger than the one I had just shot. He sensed the struggling fish and not wanting the drama to unfold in my lap I let the line slide through my hands as the Cuda raced to the bottom. The shark was by now only 60 feet from the surface and upon seeing the 30 lb fish streaking towards him, the 11 footer tucked his tail between his legs and swam as fast as he could back over the wall from where he had just come. The men in the gray suits(the Tax collectors as we call them) must have finally taken a hint and figured out we play rough if we have to.

PS. If a Mako shark comes by and I’m hunting in the bluewater, and its legal, I will more than likely shoot it. They are an incredible gamefish, are good eating, and one of the most challenging fish you could hunt and land. If you are purposely going out to shoot sharks, and I do not condone this, be a man and fight him from the water in his element. If the bleeding hearts have something to say about it at least you can say you played fair and did it on his own turf and gave him full authority to return the favor and sink his teeth into you.