Thread: Kayaker and great white shark

Watched that vid this morning, think I would be heading straight in to the rocks . Bugger paddling 4 km back to where he came in.

I would of shitted myself....

Then turfed the turd overboard....

That would get rid of that shark....!

Yeh...I would be another one for an involuntary bowel movement too.

Had a big bugger appear a few years ago off kaka point, we were in a 16 foot boat when it swam along side. Was at least 2 feet longer than us. I think it was the first time the old Johnson outbound started first pull.

I would have deployed my fecal deterrent .



Was it Call of the wapiti where the guy was paddling from one side of a fiord to the other in an inner tube and got circled by a white pointer?

I find that second video, with the scuba divers super interesting as my wife and I had a similar experience at the 3 Kings. I think it was the 2016/17 summer.

Diving in south east bay looking for crays. Water temp was super cold around 15° if I remember correctly. I was head down in a crayfish hole, only to come out and there maybe 5m away swimming directly across behind my wife was a 4m approx white.. I pointed to it and she turned around saw it and backed right up against the rocks and signaled to go up. At first it was amazing to see almost like and aquarium then as the reality set in of the situation fear pretty quickly took over. I made a plan in my head and decided to head to some rocks that were roughly 50m away. Started off across the bottom towards the rocks when I looked back to my left and saw the shark coming straight back towards me (I thought I was about to die), I watched it swim supper casually and slowly right over top of me only about 1m above and vividly remember seeing my bubbles go up and touch it, i then watched it swim out of sight. So continued across the bottom and found a rock that was breaking the surface and climbed straight up and out of the water onto the rock with all dive gear on and called out to the boat to come and get us. (Didn't know I could rock climb in dive fins) . Fuck me it was scary but watching that video shows almost identical behavior so it's quite cool to see. My next dive was in at Whatawhiwhi after that and I couldn't stop looking over my shoulder.

Ps.. it won't let me edit the post to fix my grammar, so you will have to piece together the couple of poorly constructed sentences

Originally Posted by Nick.m

Ps.. it won't let me edit the post to fix my grammar, so you will have to piece together the couple of poorly constructed sentences

I worked it out. Good story! I always thought staying on the sea bed would be some protection, then YouTube just threw up a video of great whites hunting stingrays, digging them up out the sand.

I figure on the seabed there's less chance of them mistaking you for a seal compared to being on the surface. The bubbles wouldn't be something their prey would normally make so it should in theory be a little more foreign to them and in turn less chance of them mistaking you for prey but I don't really know

Originally Posted by MB

That a near 40 foot shark, 12 metres! Could it have been a whale shark? Otherwise you saw a megalodon!

Baskys get pretty big but wont have a go at you...not sure what their fins look like though as its been a decade or two since I saw my last one and I was not really looking at the fins.....

Auckland Harbour in my Kayak a few years ago: I was anchored and catching a few fish and I had Conger Eel bleeding out over the side. Conger Eels are good in soups and stews. As they're slimy and take forever to die, and really mess up the Kayak, I developed the method using a lip grabber on them and slitting the throat, and dangling them over the side to bleed out until dead, no mess Charlie.

I'm anchored, stern to the current and looking downstream, I see a little triangular fin, zig zagging its way towards me, about 20 metres away. Obviously it had scented the Eel. Great I thought, a little shark, I'll get my steel trace on.

As I did so the shark got closer and closer. Then the little fin got about a foot tall...

Adrenalin time.

I whipped the eel aboard and into a plastic bag, and hoped there was no blood coming out of my scuppers.

It was a large female Bronze Whaler, as fat as a fat thing, obviously in the harbour to pup.

She came up to the Kayak and circled it, 4 or so times and now there was no blood in the water, lost interest and went. Thank god, I didn't want to see what would happen if she took an interest in the Kayak.

As she went wound the Kayak I watched, as her tail got level with my stern I whipped my head around to see her head near my bow, so a reasonable estimate is 12~13 ft long, given my Kayak is 14 ft.

And fat as a bulldozer.

Originally Posted by timattalon

Baskys get pretty big but wont have a go at you...not sure what their fins look like though as its been a decade or two since I saw my last one and I was not really looking at the fins.....

Height of dorsal vs tail - I looked on the web when we got back and there really isn't much that's configured like that and also has the potential to get that big. As noted, it's either a meg (extinct) or a grandma white that is huge. There's a lot of scuttle about big whites off Northland/Barrier, the commercial fishing boys go on about 'Brutus' which was rumoured to be a white of about that size. Dunno...

Originally Posted by MarkN

Auckland Harbour in my Kayak a few years ago: I was anchored and catching a few fish and I had Conger Eel bleeding out over the side. Conger Eels are good in soups and stews. As they're slimy and take forever to die, and really mess up the Kayak, I developed the method using a lip grabber on them and slitting the throat, and dangling them over the side to bleed out until dead, no mess Charlie.

I'm anchored, stern to the current and looking downstream, I see a little triangular fin, zig zagging its way towards me, about 20 metres away. Obviously it had scented the Eel. Great I thought, a little shark, I'll get my steel trace on.

As I did so the shark got closer and closer. Then the little fin got about a foot tall...

Adrenalin time.

I whipped the eel aboard and into a plastic bag, and hoped there was no blood coming out of my scuppers.

It was a large female Bronze Whaler, as fat as a fat thing, obviously in the harbour to pup.

She came up to the Kayak and circled it, 4 or so times and now there was no blood in the water, lost interest and went. Thank god, I didn't want to see what would happen if she took an interest in the Kayak.

As she went wound the Kayak I watched, as her tail got level with my stern I whipped my head around to see her head near my bow, so a reasonable estimate is 12~13 ft long, given my Kayak is 14 ft.

And fat as a bulldozer.

Wow, that is a big bronzie - it's unreal when they get to size how wide they are across the body. We have in our heads sharks being sleek and that = slim, but slim is one thing they are not. I had a conversation with a guy that was fishing the the entrance at the Mt off a little dingy at slack water, picking up trevs and kings. A shark started flogging his fish, and it came right up to the transom and said thanks for dinner with a good look at him. I asked him how big it was, he said I dunno about big but it was 3/4 the width of the transom wide - I took it as my cue to go home!

As soon as you said the Orcas eye was as big as a truck wheel your little credibility was shot. Quit the bullshitting

Originally Posted by Gibo

As soon as you said the Orcas eye was as big as a truck wheel your little credibility was shot. Quit the bullshitting

Hah hah. With so many experiences and so much knowledge about so may things No3 must be older than me. Or its Bunji.