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Dorset Sharks

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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S

Stevie T

Well-Known Member
Jan 27, 2003
78
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Forgive me if I am going over old ground here, but I was wondering how many of the dorset spearos have had any sightings of sharks?

I have noticed in a few of the local threads comments regarding seeing the odd porbeagle, but I wondered what the frequency was, sizes, other species of shark?

I appreciate that we have a lot of the smaller species like huss, dogs, spurdogs etc so was thinking more along the lines of Tope, Porbeagles, Blues, Threshers etc etc

Cheers

Steve
 
Being one of my weekly dive locations im not sure i want to know....

I can see it now....they'll start selling Powerheads / Bangsticks for the concrened at portland oceaneering :martial rofl
 
Tope are occasional around Dorset, and blues have been caught "seasonally". Basking sharks are also sited occasionally. Porbeagles live around a number places on the dorset coast line throughout the whole year. I won't go into to much detail on here as I would hate to be responsibly for a Fishing trip to the sites, but be assured they are actively hunting around us as we dive. We also have a Thresher breading ground to the east of the dorset coastline, but once again will keep that close to my chest :t

Can I suggest www.sharktrust.org if you fancy learning more about our UK species.

Cheers,

SD
 
Cheers for the info, interesting stuff.

Rest assured that I am not planning any sort of fishing trip for them, it is purely out of fascination of the species and wanting to learn a bit more about the ones local to me.

Cheers

Steve
 

Hi Steve

I work at a dive/spearfishing shop on Portland and as such come into contact with a lot of people with shark stories. Obviously these are only stories and seeing is believing. If they are to be believed, then sharks around Portland are more common than you might think.

This one is definitely true though. This was caught inside Portland harbour last summer. I cut my head off the photo because I was having a bad hair day. http://www.busterlung.co.uk/fish031.jpg

P.S I didn't catch it.
 
20 years ago sharks were common around our Channel Islands but they were fished out by the long liners. Now they are appearing in numbers again. I imagine this will be short lived because as soon as there are spotted the commercial boys are after them.
You are right Steve the "shark subject" has been done many times before but we love talking sharks I think it is only a matter of time before I spot my first Guernsey shark underwater. At the moment there is a big Porbeagle around one of my favorite dive spots which has been seen by several fishermen. To be honest I am not exactly wishing this to happen but on the over hand what an experience that would be.
 
There used to be a UK shark-fishing club headquartered at Looe in Cornwall, not sure if it is still going. Back in the day they did catch many sharks, and release them, the majority of them being blue sharks. Some of the guys in Dorset have been buzzed by a Porbeagle in Portland and they are seen fairly regularly off the Eddystone. My old dive partner was buzzed by a shark whilst spearing off the Plymouth breakwater. He had just started his duck dive after breathing up and as he slid into the deep his boatman saw a fin follow him down and started the engine to scare it off; it worked. He was 90% certain it was a porbeagle. In the 'Spearfishermans Handbook' there is a story about a girl who used to spear sharks commercially somewhere off Dorset, bonnie something or other. Nutjob.
 
BTW... I read this morning in a paper a Mako attacked a bait after a fisherman was reeling in his catch in Cornwall, so they should be pushing up to Dorset from now until end of September.
 
I agree with foxfish "I am not exactly wishing this to happen but on the over hand what an experience that would be"

The porbeagle looks very similar to the Salmon Shark, does anyone know if there is a 'family' tie?

Beautiful fish! would love to get some footage of them on my camera.

Pelagicbeing
 
Its not in Dorset, but about 2 months ago I was spearing in Cornwall. It was a crazy day with huge shoals of bass charging around. The backs off the bass where coming out of the water and you could see them from the surface from quite a distance. Me and my mate were getting dropped out of our little inflatable in front of the shoals and were picking big ones out as they streamed past.
He jokingly said "I wonder what is feeding on them?".When we were heading back we got buzzed by a blue shark that was around 3m long (bigger than the boat we were in), so that answered his question!
 
pelagicbeing said:
The porbeagle looks very similar to the Salmon Shark, does anyone know if there is a 'family' tie?
Click to expand...

Im put my hands up and admit I don't no anything about the Salmon shark. But the Porbeagle is related to the Great White (a cousin of). Its part of the Lamnidae family of sharks (Mackerel Shark).
 
pelagicbeing, I am freediving with some Porbeagles in a few weeks around North cornwall. I will post some photos and film footage if I get anything decent.
 

Wow you where lucky! Thats almost at max size, quite rare to see them in the UK that big!
 
Thanks Souldeep! The salmon shark is closely related to the great white as well, i have a documentary about them that i recorded off TV ages ago....might have been Attenborough's 'life of sea mammals' or something like that....The x3 look very similar.

Good luck down in north devon.

Pelagicbeing
 
I used to have a fear of sharks and always be worrying abought them when spearfishing. But not any more as i have had an encounter with one so i dont worry any more when spearfishing. My new fear is jelly fish
 


Hi Guys,

quite interested in this discussion and just did a tiny buit of research, turns out that porbeagle is another name for the salmon shark. I was sure that i rememebred that being the case, and sure enough it is...

http://www.fishalaskamagazine.com/fish/salmon_shark.htm

There is a small passage on the site, the most intersting bit to us saying...

it goes without saying that the Salmon Shark is known by many different 'common' names. Depending on where you are in the world it can be called the Porbeagle, Bluedog, Salmon Shark, Mackerel Shark or Bonito Shark,
Click to expand...

The Mackrel sharks ( family Lamnidae) primarily consist of the Mako, Porbeagle (salmon shark) and the Great White, all of which migrate to northen waters during the summer months (some to a more extreme degree than others).

Huw
 
Last edited:
Actually, reading on towards the rest of that link, it is quite interesting, with some great facts on this particular species. Recommended to anyone with spare time to check it out!

Huw
 
Huw said:
The Mackrel sharks ( family Lamnidae) primarily consist of the Mako, Porbeagle (salmon shark) and the Great White, all of which migrate to northen waters during the summer months (some to a more extreme degree than others).Huw
Click to expand...

Well you learn something new every day

One thing they need to correct; it's true that both Great Whites and Mako "commute" to northen waters, but thats totally UNTRUE of Porbeagles. They are all year round Northen water sharks and are resident off the UK all year round, I assue you
 
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