Palaver from Persimmon Crossing
with Warren Faulk
Sharks Happen
There have been several reports of shark attacks in US
coastal areas in recent weeks. I wonder if it isn't time for
the installation of shark exclusion barriers along our
crowded public beaches. We could begin with small areas
to accomodate those who would not otherwise swim or wade
for fear of a shark attack on themselves or their children and
let everyone else take their chances as they already do.
I don't care to be labeled an alarmist but I would also like to
point out that sharks do not restrict their activities to open
oceans and gulfs. They travel well inland in our bays and
rivers, even into what you might ordinarily think of as fresh
water.
Because of these recent reports I have begun to remember
encounters and near encounters I have had with sharks.
I have fished quite a bit over the years and I
couldn't care less about catching anything that is too big to
take home in a bucket or fooling around with something that
might have designs on eating me.
Follows a ragtag bunch of shark stories, none very exciting
taken alone, but these happened to me! I'm the guy with the
sunburn and the surf rod, not the brave mariner who has set
out to do battle. Who are you? And do you know where your
kids are right now?
Mama, Daddy, 'Tis and I were on the beach late at night. Daddy
was wading the Gulf of Mexico (near the Pink Pony Pub where two
men were attacked recently). Mama was wading back and forth
carrying bait to him. He was just back from the Pacific and WW II
and had really missed his fishing. So here we were, safe on our beloved
Alabama beach. Daddy felt fish bumping into him and nibbling the
hairs on his body. He didn't think much of it but after awhile
curiosity got the best of him. He waded out and got his cast net and went
back in about waist deep. When he felt the nibbling again he threw
the net. Instead of catfish or whiting or whatever he might have thought
had been irritating him, he had a net full of young sharks to contend with.
We packed up and went home about then. It was late.
As a young boy I can remember standing on an old wooden pier and
watching a spear fisherman pass under the pier. He was towing a stringer
of small fish and was being followed by a hammerhead shark on the
surface. The stringer was just a rope tied around the man's waist. The
shark might easily have drowned the man if he had just attempted to take the
fish. I yelled, the man calmly left the water, happy ending.
When I was 16 I went to La Jolla, California to visit my Aunt who was a
Navy Nurse. She was one of my heros. A flight nurse and the only female
veteran of the Normandy invasion that I have ever met. My first trip out
of the south, first plane ride and first time to see a real ocean. Everyday
when Aunt Ruth went to work I would take a bike and go to the beach
near where Scripp's Institute of Oceanography was and perhaps still is.
The Pacific, according to me, was pretty tame compared to the Gulf I had
just left. Very calm and few fish. I swam all over the coves that ran around
the shore to the south of the main beach. Swam around divers in wet suits
and surfers with no surf. No girls around either. The same week, one year
later, a man was killed by a big shark. Eaten wet suit and all in two gulps.
His abalone diving companion witnessed the tragedy from just a few feet
away. A helicopter pilot called to the scene reported seeing a shark about
20' long cruising the area. It was thought to be a great white.
My brother Mike and I both took military leave together once back in the
60's and spent two days fishing out of Daddy's "speed boat" in the shallows
over the oyster beds in Mobile Bay. The first day we had a lot of activity
but landed few fish. Nearly every trout or flounder we hooked was promptly
cut off by something we could not see. Several times we actually hooked
larger fish but invariably lost hook and sinker. The next day we took along
a heavy rod with a wire leader. We began fishing with our regular tackle and
immediately caught several cleanly severed fish heads. So I took a small fish
and baited the heavy rod. I no sooner got the bait in the water than I was
fast attached to our trouble maker . It turned out to be a shark just a bit
smaller than I was at the time. I managed to get it to belly up and after slitting
it open I cut it loose. No more trouble. We cleaned a mix of 104 white trout, a
few specks, a handful of ground mullet and two or three flounder that day.
You can be sure we did not take a swim to cool off as we were prone to do.
One of our favorite fishing "holes" was a spot along the Gulf called the
"Cutoff". During our heyday there was a storm caused, and very small channel
joining the Lagoon with the open Gulf. A place where lots of shrimp and fish
passed back and forth from Lagoon to Gulf with the tides. On this particular
afternoon Daddy and I took a few lures, waded across the knee deep
channel and began to cast into the Gulf. It was a great day for fishing. No
weather to speak of and a rising tide teeming with fish. We were taking
speckled trout mostly and were so busy that I think we just turned everything
loose. Didn't keep anything. Well ... along about dark Daddy hooked a
good sized tarpon just as he was finishing a retrieve. The tarpon came in fast,
jumped and landed between Daddy and the beach in about 6" of water , broke
off and escaped. We were stunned. Neither of us had ever seen a live tarpon
before. Shortly thereafter I had my lure out of the water preparing for another
cast when a shark rose up from my feet, took the lure about four or five feet in
the air, splashed me good and ended our fishing for the day. Of course, by then it
was almost dark and the tame little knee deep channel we had crossed was
waist deep, flowing fast and full of mullet which were struggling to get away
from something really big. I think we would have spent the night on the beach
but the black flies and noseeums showed up about then. A shark might eat you.
The bugs at Gulf Shores definitely will. Each of us was hit several times by fast
moving fish on the wade out. For some reason we always fished the near side
from then on.
I have on several occasions loaded up specifically to catch sharks. Bucket of blood,
big chunks of fish and beef liver, rope lines and chain leader. This is a good way
to catch blue crab I found. Never caught a shark that way though. On the other hand
I have caught a shark in Miflin creek near the bridge and in Bayou Grande just outside
the yacht basin at Pensacola Naval Air Station where all the children take sail
training on dinkey little catamarans. Once I laid a live minnow in the surf while fishing
from a pier, thinking to catch a flounder. More than 10 people were wading beyond
my bait on the Gulf side. A shark of 50 to 60 pounds took the minnow and reared up.
I locked the reel and broke him off. I could just see that 30 pound line, hook, wire
leader and shark sawing through those swimmers and I still called to the swimmers
to leave the water, fearing an attack by that shark or others. Nobody argued.
In 1959 I went swiming in the Gulf near Destin Florida. There was a four foot deep trough
of water right against the beach stretching about 100 feet to a sandbar and then the main Gulf.
I swam the trough, waded the bar and ventured into clear but deep water, whereupon I saw
a fin coming toward me. I backed up onto the bar and the shark followed me to the point where
it could no longer make any progress. I was safe until the next wave, or so I thought. I hustled
across the bar and dove into the trough executing my best Mark Spitz immitation toward the
dry sand. I forgot that there was a break in the sandbar just a few yards from where the shark
made its first run. Of course this was the sharks kitchen ... I barely made it clear and I'm glad
I was scared enough to keep going beyond the shoreline because the shark didn't stop there
either. In fact, if I could have stopped shaking I could have dragged it on up the beach. Maybe
next time.
Not all shark experiences are bad. On one grand day shortly after Hurricane Fredrick, my Dad,
my Brother and I were fishing from the Alabama State Pier at Gulf Shores. The pier was badly
mangled by the storm and was out of service ... but ... Daddy was the pier manager so.........
Like three mountain goats we climbed over the wreckage and found a dream like situation.
Really unique. We had Redfish and Sharks, all about 12 pounds each, running East to West
on the surface and in easy casting range. The action was fast and sustained. Being a
competition beagler I had a chain leash and choke collar in my tackle. We made leaders out
of these and caught dozens of fish. Most of the hookups were made on the surface and in
plain view. We made steaks out of everything. The sharks were excellent table fare and the
reds were even better.
Sharks are where you find them. They are sometimes where you least expect and once in
awhile do things that "sharks don't do". They are a very important part of the Eco System.
We should respect that and even protect them where indicated . I once saw a tiny shark,
all dried out , bent, wrinkled and apparently dead try to take a finger off a man who was
cleaning up the pier and throwing fish overboard. Respect? Yes. Protect? Even that.
Trust? ... next question.
-- Warren Faulk
Smarr, Georgia
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