2 or 3 years ago we had a fat one Circle the boat , it was at Santa Cruz island in June we followed the shark all the way to a kelp bed off YB /Smuglers Cove area ,,the scary part was that the shark swam straight into the kelp :@ and never came back up ,,,,
shortly after that we all Limited out on WSB and forgot about the shark
I did see one from aboard my boat off of Avalon about a mile out. The lower end of my engine busted and we were being towed from Avalon to Long Beach. A large (in my opinion) white shark slowly surfaced in the wash behind my boat and since there was no prop churning the water was pretty clear. Once his dorsal was completely out of the water he sank out again just as he came. To damn big to be anything else. I've also seen them eating tuna remains at the end of a days fishing at Guadalupe several times, so I also use that as a reference for identification. Its probably best that I've never seen one while diving.
i saw a 16'-18' white at santa barbra island a couple years ago it did a couple laps around the boat then left. i have seen a couple while surfing or paddling up here
phil
i saw a 16'-18' white at santa barbra island a couple years ago it did a couple laps around the boat then left. i have seen a couple while surfing or paddling up here
phil
No bueno Phil! That's a BIG shark!
No bueno Phil! That's a BIG shark!
it was real fun diving in 15' vis in the same spot the next day . the amazing part is it was at least 5' maybe 6' wide,and we got to see id from 8' away. they are massive.
phil
That would make one hell of a steak 
3 while in the water...story's when I retire some day.:D
Cheers, Don
Come on Don, you can't keep us hanging like that! Plus you might be saving a life because we'll know how to avoid problems. You wouldn't want to go to sleep at night knowing you could've saved one of us and didn't would you 
I've never seen one here, but Capt Ron got rushed by a small one two seasons ago on the backside of Cat. He was in thick kelp and it rushed him 3 times before it swam off.
He said it was cool, go figure.
x2 , But i understand there are somthings that you just have to keep to yourself like that , therers stuff like that I will only tell when im 100% done with diving
Come on Don, you can't keep us hanging like that! Plus you might be saving a life because we'll know how to avoid problems. You wouldn't want to go to sleep at night knowing you could've saved one of us and didn't would you
x2 , But i understand there are somthings that you just have to keep to yourself like that , therers stuff like that I will only tell when im 100% done with diving
Joe, I hope / think that means you'll never tell!
Chis - Yes Ive see GWS big and small in so cal waters; and I've seen tigers in HI and Aus..............
Sharks are out there.... if you see them or not.
If you get the opportunity to be in the water with a really big one......... well.............
just enjoy!
it may be a once in a life time experience 
Happy Halloween!
Come on Don, you can't keep us hanging like that! Plus you might be saving a life because we'll know how to avoid problems. You wouldn't want to go to sleep at night knowing you could've saved one of us and didn't would you
When the water temp hits 54 degrees at the surface this year I come clean . I would never hold something back that could save a life. I promise 3 personal GWS stories and a extra bonus story from
the East end Quarry with a few pictures. I dive alone allot at night some times a long kick of LB in piss green cold water....I'm getting soft mate and low on testosterone, old stories scare me at my age. :@:@
Now guys driving around on the weed at night in Cali...That's F'n SPOOKY.:@:@:D
Cheers, Don
OK - here's all the answers
Sharks: Tips to avoid the fatal mistake
The article seems reasonable. But I can't stand it every time they say this
Quotethe odds of you ever being attacked by a great white shark are astronomical
This statistic doesn't mean anything because it takes people as a whole, including the vast majority who never even go in the water. Clearly swimming with struggling and bleeding fish as we often do puts the odds slightly more against us :rolleyes1:
Come on Don, you can't keep us hanging like that! Plus you might be saving a life because we'll know how to avoid problems. You wouldn't want to go to sleep at night knowing you could've saved one of us and didn't would you
Chris here is a preview of a one of my floats. These were images of my float that was '' bitten'' a few years ago at the East End Quarry in a month with a ''R'' in the spelling. I will post the complete story when I get a few more pounds of meat in the frig. I have hid it from my young son for 9 years as I don't want him having bad dreams about his dad. I will say no shark has ever hurt me other then a sore rib from a hard bump from a pissed Grey Reef a wouldn't share a fish with .I have some chewed fin tips from dives in French Poly and like Mike I have dove with a massive Tiger, fat bulls, a few Mako's and the lord of the sea .... the majestic and beautiful Carcharodon carcharians. Here is a tip for others swimming or diving in any sea ......
When one gets the shark demons swimming in your mind and the hair on the back of your neck stands up, even if you have not seen a threat, swim to the boat or shore and try another spot. If a diver is not relaxed and acting like a fellow ocean predator he is acting like a bait and not having fun. I get spooked a few times a year at Johnson Rock, the seal haul out at the East end of Cat and the space between the outside can at the rock quarry. This feeling go's away as soon as I see a big YT or WSB. The two times I have been within 10' of the big sharks I sensed their presence and felt...'' I going back to the boat'' . Seconds later.... they were there. After thousand of hours in the sea your senses know what your eyes don't see... just before the light goes on. White sharks swim by and through every dive spot on Cat but the good news is, of the many face to face encounters I have had my clan share with me, no diver
has been bitten at Catalina or San Clemente island. ( knocking on what looks like wood here from
Starbucks).:D:D;);)
After thirty trips diving French Poly, and other South Seas waters along with thousands of hrs in our
off shore waters, non divers have asked me: '' Aren't you worried about the sharks?
Here is what i tell them.... '' When you jump in the Ford to go to the store do you worry about every car coming at you at 50 mph and only separated by '' the safety'' of two stripes of yellow paint? Is the car heading for you driven by a drunk, a distracted guy with a Blackberry, or a 16 year old driver casting a quick glance at the hot girl next to him. They usually say they they would feel far safer in a car, and like me have had many safe trips to the store as a basis for their belief. I tell them that is why I feel much safer in the water.... it is my home and Mother Ocean's fish's have never scared my flesh.
Not the same record for cars driven by the clueless and the deadly.
Cheers, Don
Thanks for your patience Chris, I wish I could find the 8mm sony vid a girl from the Santa Monica Blue Fins
has of my encounter at Johnson Rock in very clear water. I'll try to look her up this winter but years ago I watched it so much I burned it into my brain and I still feel funny diving there some times. I think I'm just getting soft now that I have a son. I know I'll try to be more careful then 11 years ago. I don't have a lot to prove to myself or my ego now that I've used many of my 9 lives.
Cheers Don
From http://www.lagunabeachindepend…ightings_on_the_Rise.html 10/29/10
"Shark Sightings on the Rise
Coincides with an influx of ocean-going recreation
By Ted Reckas | LB Indy
Last week’s fatal shark attack on a body boarder near Santa Barbara County’s surfing Shangri-la, Hollister Ranch, made clear that the ocean remains in a sense, a wild place.
This summer a video of a juvenile white shark recorded by Dana Point’s Chuck Patterson off San Onofre State Beach gained widespread attention. While unsettling, the presence of juvenile white sharks was known by surfers who frequent the break. Stand-up paddle racing champion Byron Kurt, of Dana Point, has had so many encounters that he doesn’t get out of the water. “I’ve had 20 sightings in the last year and a half, close enough where I could have stuck my paddle in the water and hit it if I wanted to. But they were very mellow. Nothing aggressive ever.”
Of greater concern were numerous sightings in late August of mature white sharks, 16 to 18 feet long, spotted 1,000 yards off Sunset Beach, a popular surf spot in Santa Monica. They prey on large marine mammals, unlike fish-eating juveniles that are not considered a threat to humans.
“Their presence at these numbers this year in local waters, is as far as I know, totally unprecedented,” said 50-year diver Patrick Smith, of Long Beach, a NOAA consultant and co-author of “Shipwrecks of Southern California.”
Despite more sightings, possibly due to the proliferation of people, cameras and mobile phones, shark attacks on humans along California’s coastline have not increased. Over 85 years, 98 people have reported injurious encounters with sharks, including 12 fatalities, according to University of Florida’s International Shark File. Neither does the published literature by pelagic experts show a spike in the population of sharks, listed as a threatened species by numerous conservations groups.
That, however, may change. Prominent white-shark researcher Chris Lowe, of Cal State Long Beach, claims more white sharks are thriving in Californian waters.
“We have some data that show the population may be increasing. And based on all the evidence, that is what we should expect to see,” said Lowe, whose research has yet to undergo peer review or publication.
Lowe’s expectations arise from several changes affecting shark habitat: a 1994 ban on gillnet fishing, which took a heavy toll on several species including white sharks; protections for white sharks enacted the same year; an increase in reports since 2001 by fishermen releasing juvenile white sharks caught as by-catch; and a flourishing population of seals and sea lions, white sharks’ food supply, since passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972.
In addition, scientists in September found three times the normal number of sea otters in Central California dead from shark bites.
Jeffrey Graham, a 25-year white shark researcher at La Jolla’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography, remains skeptical.
“The general consensus is (white sharks) are over-fished. I would say there aren’t more than 10,000 in the whole world. I have heard no data to suggest there are more sharks present now than there were 20 years ago. Believe me, if there were that data, I would know about it.”
In fact, “depletion of top oceanic predators is a pressing global concern,” concluded a 2009 study by Sal Jorgenson and colleagues at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Lab.
The increase in sightings seems to contradict the research, which shows many shark species that lack the protections given white sharks are in decline.
“There are more eyes on the ocean. More communication about it, too,” said Scripps’ Graham. “Everything we know is much more magnified now than it was 10 to 15 years ago.”
Kurt, who has surfed at San Onofre since 1975, only spotted sharks in the last two years since undertaking stand-up paddling, which allows a higher vantage point. “They’ve always been there. We are seeing a lot more because of the SUP population out there,” he said.
After the release of Peter Benchley’s book “Jaws” in 1975 and the movie the following year, shark reports spiked and then tapered off in the ‘80s, the second highest decade of shark attacks in the state when three people died. The worst periods occurred in the last decade and in the 1950s, when four people died in shark attacks in each 10-year period, according to state Fish and Game Department data.
Some suggest the rising number of shark encounters reflects less about the shark population than the increase in the human one and their recreational use of the ocean.
While Lowe maintains the great white shark population probably has increased, he concedes attacks by sharks have not. “The more remote places are where human-shark encounters happen. Look at how many people are in the water at a place like Bolsa Chica on Labor Day. Do you see shark attacks there ever? No,” he said.
Jorgenson said more data is needed to conclude the white shark population is increasing. “The number is quite low, maybe lower than people would expect. The indications that may suggest the white shark is increasing come from data on juvenile white sharks. They have different habitat than adults.”
Longtime local diver Nancy Caruso said she may have seen a great white 10 years ago, miles offshore in 2,000 feet of water. “Just as it saw me it turned around and swam away. They don’t like scuba divers. I rarely see a shark in Laguna if ever. I don’t worry about sharks at all.”
Free diver Bryan Menne spotted a shark he estimated to be six feet long about 30 years ago. More recently, he regularly sees smaller sharks. If there are more white sharks in the water, he attributes it to an increase in the seal population.
Jorgenson dismisses the connection. He said the pinniped populations have rebounded, but remain a fraction of their size prior to being hunted.
Lowe remains steadfast. “It’s remarkable that with a species like the white shark, with the worst reputation with humans, all these countries had the wherewithal to protect them. This is a success story. We should be happy. We don’t get them very often.”
I agree with Chris Lowe that the population is thriving, just look at the sharp increase in the number of GWS at Gudalupe Island in the last 25 years. My guys used to get big yellowtail there yearly without sightings..... welll except for the one that killed Al S. and the one that hit Harry I. driving him up out of the water and over the sharks back after he unloaded the gun in his face.
I dove with Harry after that and I felt like I was diving with a shark magnet out in the blue.;)
Cheers, Don
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