When to defend yourself

I also spear here in the pacific. I've only encountered three sharks in my many many days spearing. None of them have bothered me like this, as of yet. Usually they turn the other way or don't pay attention to me. However, I watch a ridiculous amount of videos pertaining to spearfishing on youtube. In most of the shark related videos that involve contact are usually the fishermen jabbing the shark in the face with whatever they have, polespear/gun. Not actually trying to spear the shark, mostly just to deter them from getting closer.

You would certainly lose your spear if you shot him. I have had similar "interest" by large baracuda in cayman and would just recomend jabbing at them, in the face area lol. Especially dont shoot him if your tethered to your rig

There are a couple of pretty badly behaved species with white edges on thier fins,"silver vee's" & the "oceanic white tip" they are very different in behaviour to "white tip reef sharks". Have you identified the species correctly?

In my experience the "silver vee's"(unlike "white tipped reef sharks) behave in the manner you have described, they are up on the surface with you & in your face, often there is more than one. Its pointless to stay in the water as they will take every fish you shoot & they can be so agressive as to be dangerous. Leave the water or move to another location or be prepared to kill them as they arrive. (I'm not condoning you kill them at all, just making a point).

I doubt it was an "oceanic white tip" or your story would be more dramatic. I don't like these fish much when spearfishing. They don't muck around like tigers or whalers they usually just want to bite everything to see if its edible. I don't know if they like the taste of humans or not, but I'd prefer not to be "tasted". If one of these fish was comming at me then I'd hit it with everything I had. If I'd seen it first & had the time I'd be heading for or in the boat before this could happen. You are not likely to have time to fit a powerhead with these fish in the circumstances I've encountered them (burleying/chumming for tuna). They are not common & I've never seen two together. Just for conversation (someones likely to bring them up) power heads are for killing/hunting sharks IMO not for protection whilst speaefishing as there is rarely enough time to fit one if its really needed.

Putting a spear into a shark is not going to provoke an attack, it will be too busy trying to fight the spear & to get rid of it. It is most likely going to have a long & painfull death from the spear & not something that should be done lightly. If its just a white tipped reef shark I think a jab or a quick lunge would be enough to sort out dominance, & I wouldn't be too concerned by them.

Good identification of species is important when swimming with sharks.


Cheers Sharkey

PS. If someone does kill a shark with a speaergun even in self defence please don't post it on social media, no one will think you're a hero & it just brings too many negatives onto our sport.

Shrks which I encountered like reef nd white tips were all well behaved but it changed once I snagged an octopus I had to give to them as I was alone and a good kilomètre from the beach. Once I gave them the octopus it was game over. I swam back with my bag of fish with no problem. Lesson learned.

Awesome vid, you don't see that amount of fish in many places nowadays!

LittleFatMan said:

Is this proper form when defending from some aggressive sharks?

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These weren't aggressive sharks in the slightest. Confidently pushing them away is fine when they are like this. If there was a more aggressive species or the temperament of the sharks changed (which it can do quickly) then landing fish would become more difficult, & it would be wise to leave the water for a bit & move a few hundred yards till things became less sporty.

Foxfish there is a place in the southern coral sea where larger aggregations of wahoo can still be expected in early november each year. The density is much higher than in this video & the aggregation can be a klm long (thousands of fish). The shelf rises up fast to 60m before it becomes a coral atoll. The wahoo are usually up current of this dropoff. The wahoo on the last trip I was on ranged from 20kgs for the small fish to 50kgs for the large, with 30kgs being the average. There are some big tuna at this location too the best I've done here is 82 kgs but there are doggies a foot longer than this cruising deep below the action on the surface. Its hard to burley them up & when they do come up its hard to land them once speared if they aren't stoned. I've never been to this spot without at least one sailfish being speared (I don't shoot them anymore myself), & some fair-sized marlin occasionally swim through checking out the commotion. There still is some amazing places & sights, but the world is shrinking & there are fewer & fewer remote places left anymore. Anyway I hope this last paragraph has brought some sunshine to what seems to have been a wet winter up there for a lot of you folks.

Cheers Sharkey

Hmm, that's impressive though when one is not alone its a given that your mate will watch your back..i have not encountered that many Wahoos but in parts of Cuba Barracudas patrol with Carangue don't know the english name, white tips r never far, in my encounters with sharks they seem timid almost aloof but always ready to cash in a free meal. Not surprisingly they go batty over cephalopods its my personal expérience

Brilliant vid!