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Old 05-13-2005, 07:28 AM
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Default Re: Bumped by shark- Fort DeSoto

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eagle
Last Sat evening I was walking in from the sandbar at East Beach after gear failure, the tide was unusually high and I was in mid waist to chest deep water.
I did not see anything, but something really big bumped into my lower legs knocking me down, feeling like sandpaper rubbed across my leg I knew without a doubt that it was a shark.
Reading somewhere that sharks often "bump" before they bite, I thought this is it and did what any reasonable fellow who is scared of shark bite would do, screamed like hell and slapped the water with my board.
I had that feeling you get when you come close to getting into an acciedent times 10.
Luckily good ole Swingin Steve was upwind and observed the commotion and frantic arm motion, rode down wind and gave me a lift back to the beach.
This was the second shark encounter I've had in recent weeks, the other was at West Cypress, early evening and involved a spooked shark boiling in my wake then following me a short distance.
The common denomenator seems to be the evening.
The conventional wisdom would have it that you were being tasted prior to an attack or no further action.

Some questions, do you remember any unusual activity (e.g. shoals of bait breaking the surface, diving groups of seagulls, etc.) and when was this in regard to sunset? Was there anything else out of the ordinary that you can recall aside from your sand paper session?

Some general ideas about sharks and possible means of reducing the odds of a negative encounter appear at: http://fksa.org/viewtopic.php?t=555

The ideas may help, then again, maybe not. It is there place after all and we're just visiting and getting the hang of things there in this new, fairly noisy activity.

Glad you are ok,
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