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Old 02-02-2011, 08:35 AM
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ricki ricki is offline
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I debated about throwing this up but figured why not? I would take a good look at the clip. It is best at 720p with a popped out screen for better detail. This was likely shot in the first few months of 2010 during the normal winter spinner migration. The location was in Delray Beach, Florida, 65 miles south of Hutchenson Island where Steve Schafer was attacked. The migration may go for a couple of months on and off along the SE coast of South Florida. Although not identified in a lot of fatal attacks, spinners and blacktips account for the majority of unprovoked shark attacks in Florida.* They may often be "hit and run" attacks, take a bite, find it isn't fish and move on.



I originally thought it was more like "kiter chases dozens of sharks." Taking a closer look at the clip, I see this isn't entirely accurate. Early on the sharks ignore the kiter, later in the clip you will see quite a few turn and accelerate towards him. It is a good thing he is riding a strapless surfboard, no one ever slides off one of those by accident?! Even with straps there are lots of things that will send us into the water at times. Just because you go into the water doesn't mean a blacktop will hit you. Then again, it does happen that way at times. If you splash going in or are in for an extended period the odds of a problem go up. There are also the larger more aggressive sharks riding herd on the smaller tasty blacktops to think about. There were a few larger shadows in the clip.

We had a guy trying to teach himself how to kite in Hutchinson Island years back with bait kicking up and during the migration. He as attacked pretty intensively but survived, recovered and elected to move inland far from the ocean after.

Like I said, I rode with these guys for four days once, thick like this too much of the time. Unlike in this video shot from the kite, the only time I noticed them making a run on me was around feeding time, sunset. Their dorsal fins were on the surface making detection pretty easy. I suspect there may have been a lot of other times that I may have missed. Thinking things over, I think I will pass on future opportunities. Opportunities lost in this case might be a good thing.


* http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks...iesattacks.htm
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Last edited by ricki; 01-25-2013 at 01:31 PM.
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