Shark Attack!!

[RUDD]

I will get back to waxing my board then!

[Guest NickInTheNorth]

I guess that's a fairly definitive answer!

 

Thanks Ian

[Snatcher]

Oh well on with the wet suit then

[Norm B]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ian K. Fergusson:

. But there's certainly NO solid evidence of them being here off the UK - or indeed chewing on our local dolphins or porpoises!!

 

Hope this helps clarify further -

Regards

Ian [/QB]

---

:cool: So I don't need wire traces for bass then!

[argyll]

Fascinating stuff Ian, welcome to AN.

[Matrix]

Wow - Nice thread - Dont you just love people who can give the latin name for creatures - God I'd love to be able to do that rofl.

 

Nice Bass too matey

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

We're gonna need a bigger boat!

 

Didn't we have reports of similar incidents near Hull and Grimsby recently....Initially we heard **everything** from shotgun wounds, to 'miscaught' trawled fish which had been killed and thrown back.

 

Don't really read a lot of the sea angling press, but the 'bird' theory above sounds equally as plausible.

[Ian K. Fergusson]

Norm -

No, I think your wire trace for bass remains a non-requirement, albeit I'd imagine any beefed-up terminal gear you might happen to choose would prove a waste of cash if a white shark decided to roll-up and start snatching your catch! I should add that there's been an almost annual dripfeed of 'evidence' alluding to white sharks around the UK, as Davy can attest (and he's found it equally tiresome, I believe!) - but there's a big distinction between 'sightings' and actual physical evidence. Even in those places where white sharks are rare vagrants, seemingly at the periphery of their range (like Gulf of Alaska, or Nova Scotia), they still prove their presence through tangible evidence - be it after getting snagged in commercial nets, or injuring marine mammals, etc. Unfortunately, none of the UK 'sightings' have been supported with photo-video or the like, albeit this doesn't alone refute what folks claim to have seen. This is one Needle in the Haystack that in areas where it has low population density, tends to find you - not vice-versa. The simple fact is that even in places where white sharks are well-known to fisherfolk - such as off Northeastern USA, California, Cape Province or the Mediterranean - they are still regularly confused with basking sharks when sighted from boats or land, and clearly there's potential for this to happen off the UK. As I commented above, there's no obvious biological reason why white sharks should not occur (or have occurred) sporadically around the UK, and therein lies the real enigma. It's not so much a juicy, Nessie-inspired question of 'are they here?' (as per the tabloids) - but rather, 'why aren't they here?'. We really don't understand the dynamics for this, but a working theory correlates white shark distribution and abundance in the eastern North Atlantic & Mediterranean with that of bluefin tunas. Perhaps if the migratory tuna populations in Biscay and elsewhere were ever to fully recover (unlikely in the current fishery climate!), white sharks would start to show-up too. The two seem closely entwined in the Mediterranean scenario, for example the trashing of Adriatic bluefin directly matches the loss of white sharks from an area where they were once caught pretty much each year up until the middle part of the 20th century.

 

Cheers

Ian

[SandTiger]

No Pointers spotted around Cornwall this year yet, then?

[Bennythe BAITfish]

[/QB]

:cool: So I don't need wire traces for bass then! [/QB]

 

 

Only if using em as livebait