A pair of professional spear fisherman from Aquatic Rehab gained an audience of the finny kind on a recent fishing trip.
They were out shooting for king fish aka kingy’s on Little Barrier Reef in New Zealand when six sharks started to take an interest.
‘The sharks weren’t touching the kingy which was good, they were just sort of lurking,’ Luke said on YouTube.
Surprising, as the battle to land the fish took around 10 minutes.
However things changed once they headed to the surface.
The sharks took a real interest and were seemingly all around the fisherman.
Luke said “I went down to jab one and another flew right over my head, ‘we were calling out for the boat, and yeah it was pretty intense.’
Luckily no injuries occurred to the guys or to the sharks.
Some common preventive methods for dealing with sharks while spearfishing include.*
- Avoid murky water or limited visibility areas where it may be difficult to spot sharks
- Don’t fish alone, stay in groups. There are powers in numbers
- Don’t fish at dusk or dawn, active times for sharks.
- If you see a shark, give it space while always maintaining eye contact.
- Get your catch out of the water as soon as possible. Struggling fish + blood = shark bait.
- Never connect your catch or stringer directly to your body. Sharks may go after the fish and drag you down with it or could be biting after the fish and grab a chunk of you with it.
- Don’t fight a shark for your catch. Though it may be a prized fish, better to forfeit the fish to safely fish another day. Along the same lines doing so may lead the shark to associate humans as free fish givers. Use your best judgment.
- Do not use your speargun as an offensive weapon, it could anger the shark and no one likes an angry shark.
- If a shark does get to close, try to avoid hitting the eyes and gills as you could cause permanent damage to the shark. However, if the shark is being aggressive and you feel in immediate danger protect yourself as best you can. A shark bite/attack is just as bad for sharks as it is for humans.
- Don’t get to comfortable based on a shark’s size. Smaller sharks may be a bigger threat than larger ones.
- Most importantly listen to your gut. If you feel uneasy, get out of the water and start planning your next adventure.
*Keep in mind every situation is different and sharks species act differently, some are more aggressive than others. Before you start spearfishing, be sure to ask lots of questions from those with more experience. I have found most people are glad to help a newbie learn the ropes and who knows you might find a good dive buddy in the process.
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